History of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal
Proposals for a direct route from Manchester and the north-west to the waterways of East Yorkshire were tabled in the late 18th century, and acts were passed for both the Huddersfield Narrow Canal and the Rochdale Canal as alternative trans-Pennine routes to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.
Despite a length of less than 20 miles, there were numerous engineering difficulties to overcome on the Huddersfield Narrow. The construction of Standedge Tunnel - the highest, longest and deepest canal tunnel in Britain - almost bankrupted the entire project with around 50 workers being killed during its construction.
The three-mile Huddersfield Broad Canal linked the Huddersfield Narrow Canal in the centre of Huddersfield with the Calder & Hebble Navigation at Cooper Bridge. Originally known as the Cooper Canal, it was later called Sir John Ramsden's Canal after the major landowner, before becoming known as the Broad Canal to distinguish it from the Narrow Canal. It served the developing textile industry, bringing in coal and raw materials and shipping out manufactured textiles.
The Huddersfield Narrow Canal was built for 70ft-long narrowboats, while the Huddersfield Broad accommodated wider 57ft x 14ft craft, as used on the Calder & Hebble. Goods therefore had to be transhipped between the two at Huddersfield. This enforced double handling increased costs to unacceptable levels that were made the more so by the arrival of the Huddersfield and Manchester Railway Company. Decline inevitably followed, and by the early 20th century, there was little traffic.
The line was abandoned in 1944 but was retained as a water channel. In 1948, a party of Inland Waterways Association pioneers - among them Tom Rolt and Robert Aickman - took the boat Ailsa Craig from end to end. Their documented journey was to prove the last through the Standedge Tunnel for more than 50 years - but following a major restoration programme, the route is now once agani open throughout.
After lying unused for over half a century, the awesome Standedge Tunnel and its bleak surroundings encapsulate within a glance how the Huddersfield Narrow Canal attracted the pessimistic epithet of 'the impossible restoration'. Boat passage through Standedge Tunnel, which has no towpath, is by prior arrangement only and under 'shadow' road escort in an adjacent abandoned railway tunnel.
The advent of the railway age led to other tunnels being constructed such that there are now four tunnels running closely through Standedge, all linked by interconnecting through passages, or adits. Three of these tunnels run parallel to the canal tunnel, though at a slightly higher level. One still carries trains: the other two are abandoned. The 'shadow' team uses one of these to follow each boat convoy by vehicle. At each adit crossing a signal is exchanged, and monitored electronically by a control centre at the Marsden end. One-way gates between the canal tunnel and shadow tunnel also permit access from one direction whilst denying it from the other without the requisite key.
Various tickets are available depending on the mode of passage that, on a modern powered vessel, takes around three hours. In the days before powered vessels, when boats had to be 'legged', the usual time taken was around four hours - although in 1914, boatman David Whitehead completed the journey in a record 85 minutes. All passages must be booked at least 3 days in advance through the Visitor Centre at the Marsden end (01484 844298).
