Barrowford and its locks

I was a bit unsure what to call this; the walk was partly along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, and partly in Colne and partly in Barrowford... and starts in Nelson.

So we started in Cravendale Avenue, as we could park the car there. A narrow footpath, almost opposite Bevan Place, goes down to the canal. This is the view towards Liverpool, and the reflections are wonderful. I am cheating a bit here; I took this on the way back, as dusk was approaching.

We headed the other way, towards Leeds, which took us over the Swinden Aqueduct, where the canal crosses Colne Water.


There are a set of seven locks, the Barrowford Locks, which give this post its name. This is the first.

Note the geese; they were still there when we came back.


The second lock. At the back you can see the M65. The vans on the right were fixing a gas leak...


This is the view of the old bridge from under the motorway; beyond is the third lock.  And above the lock, is another bridge; this is the B6247.


The view looking back from the lock, towards the old bridge, with the M65 at the back.


Looking towards Leeds again. The marker stone tells us it is 80 miles to Liverpool, and only 47.5 to Leeds.


At one time there was a coal wharf here. No sign of it now.


Looking the opposite direction there is a reservoir that supplies the canal. This is the view from the other side of the reservoir - you can only see a grassy back from the tow path.


The mechanisms for controlling water look like they were taken from a video game. Two steering wheels, and you need to turn each one just right to get the water to flow, and so open the gate to the next section.


We were surprised to find no way from the path that circumnavigates the reservoir to the B6247, and we ended up doing a full circuit, going back to the canal, and then to the road.

We headed east, towards Colne, passing a football pitch where my daughter played once, I guess in 2018 or thereabout.


We headed down a small road with the unlikely name Ing Dene, crossed the A6068, and then continued south, along side a small stream.


And down to Greenfield Road, ironically named as this was where the mills were. This is looking down it to where I started the post on Colne.


We went the other way. Greenfield Road becomes an alley very quickly, then crosses Whitewalls Drive. We then veered to the left, through a small nature reserve. The river here is Colne Water again, heading to the aqueduct we crossed before.


My plan was to walk along the river under the aqueduct, which Google suggested was a public path, but it was not at all clear, and the way was very muddy, so we returned to the canal.

The is just before the aqueduct, and on the other side you can see the overflow for the canal - excess water is directed into the river below.

We headed beyond where we joined the canal, crossing the bridge visible in the first image.


That bridge again further along, taken later.


We walked across a playing field, under the M65, and over Pendle Water. The is looking downstream, and you can see when Colne Water joins it in the centre of the image.


This took us to the A682, the main road through Barrowford.


The road runs parallel to Pendle Water.


We stopped for a drink at the White Bear; a nice pub with good beer, though they were playing a lot of Country and Western music...









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