Anderton Lift

An exciting day ahead of us! We had moored last night in a place quite close to the Anderton Lift so that we would get to it in reasonable time. We arrived at 9.15am, first in the queue waiting for it to open. We had risked not paying for a booked trip on the lift as it is a quiet time of year. This is a fantastic structure built in 1875 to connect the Trent & Mersey canal to the Weaver Navigation, 50 feet below. It was used for transportation of salt. Beyond it chemical works still exist.

The structure has two counterballanced tanks of water, boats go up and down in these tanks, the rising one has a bit of water pumped out so that it is slightly lighter than the descending one. Very clever stuff!

We loved the Weaver when we came on it six years ago and we weren't disappointed this time with our time on a very quiet river, we only met two other narrowboats at the Vale Royal river moorings, Cutty Sark II and Soddum Hall.

As always, internet connection is not good enough for prolonged use. Sorry no commenting!