Route
The Ashton leaves the Rochdale Canal at Ducie St. Junction in central Manchester, and climbs for 6.7 miles (10.8 km) through 18 locks, passing through Ancoats, Holt Town, Bradford-with-Beswick, Clayton, Openshaw, Droylsden, Fairfield and Audenshaw to make a head-on junction with the Huddersfield Narrow Canal (formerly the Huddersfield Canal) at Whitelands Basin in the centre of Ashton-under-Lyne. At Bradford, the canal passes by the venue of the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
Apart from the Rochdale and Huddersfield Narrow canals, the Ashton Canal only currently connects with one other canal. Just short of Whitelands, at Dukinfield Junction/Portland Basin a short arm crosses the river Tame on the Tame Aqueduct, and makes a head-on junction with the Peak Forest Canal.
There used to be four other important connections to branch canals: the Islington Branch Canal in Ancoats; the Stockport Branch Canal from Clayton to Stockport (Heaton Norris); the Hollinwood Branch Canal from Fairfield to Hollinwood; and the Fairbottom Branch Canal (itself a branch of the Hollinwood Branch Canal) from Waterhouses to Fairbottom. There was to have been a fifth branch, namely the Beat Bank Branch Canal (itself a branch of Stockport Branch Canal) from Reddish to Beat Bank in Denton, but this was abandoned before completion.
Many of the canal locks are now listed buildings.
Read more about this topic: Ashton Canal
Famous quotes containing the word route:
“In the mountains the shortest route is from peak to peak, but for that you must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks: and those to whom they are spoken should be big and tall of stature.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The route through childhood is shaped by many forces, and it differs for each of us. Our biological inheritance, the temperament with which we are born, the care we receive, our family relationships, the place where we grow up, the schools we attend, the culture in which we participate, and the historical period in which we live—all these affect the paths we take through childhood and condition the remainder of our lives.”
—Robert H. Wozniak (20th century)
“A route differs from a road not only because it is solely intended for vehicles, but also because it is merely a line that connects one point with another. A route has no meaning in itself; its meaning derives entirely from the two points that it connects. A road is a tribute to space. Every stretch of road has meaning in itself and invites us to stop. A route is the triumphant devaluation of space, which thanks to it has been reduced to a mere obstacle to human movement and a waste of time.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)