History
The canal received its Act of Parliament in 1792. It was built to supply coal from Oldham and Ashton under Lyne to Manchester. The first section between Ancoats Lane to Ashton-under-Lyne and Hollinwood was completed in 1796, followed by the lines to Heaton Norris and Fairbottom in 1797. Although there were plans to link it to the Rochdale Canal, it opened as an isolated waterway.
Benjamin Outram was retained to complete the final section between Ancoats Lane and the Rochdale Canal including the Piccadilly Basin. It included the unique Store Street Aqueduct, built on a 45 degree skew and believed to be the first major such structure in Britain and the oldest still in use today.
The section was completed by 1798, but the necessary extension by the Rochdale proprietors to the Bridgewater Canal was not built until 1800. Although the Huddersfield Narrow Canal was open as far as Woolroad by 1798, neither it, nor the Peak Forest Canal were complete. In fact it was another ten years before the former connected to Yorkshire and the east coast.
With little but local trade in its early years, the canal struggled financially and a dividend was not paid until 1806.
It then prospered until competition from railways, and later road transport, greatly diminished traffic, and through traffic had ended by 1945. Traffic on the branches ended in the 1930s. Following nationalisation in 1947-8, traffic did not revive, and all traffic had ceased by 1958, after which maintenance was run down. By 1961, combined with vandalism, the canal had become unnavigable, and its retention for pleasure use seemed unlikely.
The Ashton Canal was one of seven stretches of canal, formerly designated as remainder waterways, which were re-classified by the British Waterways Act of 8 February 1983. Under the act, a total of 82 miles (132 km) of canal were upgraded to Cruising Waterway Standard.
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