Beyond the Northernmost locks

The Lancaster Canal Northern Reaches, beyond the locks!

Our meander up the disused locks beyond Tewitfield encouraged us to go a little further! Beside the top lock are some old lock gates.

Top lock gateslock gates

Explanatory plaques on the gatesplaqueplaque

The towpath continues towards the next bridgetowpath

Saltermire Bridge 141Saltermire bridge

We walked onto the bridge and the views just get better and better!view back

Looking the other way we could see the next "blockage" in the distanceM6 in distance

The M6 cuts right across the canal and the water is taken under it in a culvert known as Cinderbarrow (141a). The motorway has a nasty habit of doing this further on too!

Cinderbarrow Culvert and the M6Cinderbarrow culvert

This was an obstacle we could overcome by following the Canal trail over the motorway, a short way down a quiet road and then onto the towpath again.

Follow the trail signtrail sign

For observant motorists speeding by, the Lancaster Canal has its own motorway signM6 sign

Unfortunately for them, they would not really be able to take in the view that we had from the other side of the culvert. We decided that the next thirteen miles to Kendal was more than "a step too far", so reluctantly turned around and retraced our steps.

The Lancaster Canal continued without us!after culvert

I defy anyone to say that the Northern Reaches are not worth restoring fully. We thoroughly recommend exploring them by foot, bike, bus or by any means available! We will return as we did not have time to fully do them justice.

The Lancaster Canal Trust and its partners are working hard towards restoration but I fear that the ambition to cruise the Northern Reaches will not be achieved in our lifetime. However it would be a wonderful legacy for the next generations of boaters to come, so the ambition to support and "get the word out" must be ours!

The websites to look at are: The Lancaster Canal Restoration Partnership and The Lancaster Canal Trust and of course a comprehensive photographic record of our walk on our photo gallery!

The Restoration Partnership website has a virtual tour of how the restored canal would look and shows solutions to the various "blockages" too!

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