Tewitfield Locks

Today's the day ................................... for a restoration project

Back in 1820, it was possible to go from Preston north to Kendal - by canal. Coal was brought from Lancashire and limestone was taken south - giving rise to its nickname of the black and white canal .

Twenty years later the coming of the railways started the decline of the canal as a commercial enterprise and by the 1950s it had been officially abandoned. The final straw came in the 1960s when the M6 motorway cut off the Northern Reaches - the last 14 miles of the canal from Tewitfield to Kendal - from navigation south to Preston.

It has been a long held dream of the Lancaster Canal Trust that this bit of the canal could one day be restored to its former glory. It has been estimated that the cost of the project would be somewhere between £54.6m and £62.4m. It would involve tackling three motorway and four trunk road crossings and would include the enhancement and conservation of 52 historically important and listed structures.

So not something for the faint-hearted then ............................