History of the Ribble Link

The idea for the Millennium Ribble Link dates back 200 years and was part of an ambitious scheme to build a canal starting at Wigan in the south and continuing 75 miles north to Kendal.

The canal was to consist of three long level sections connected by two flights of locks and including two large aqueducts, over the rivers Ribble and Lune. Work began in 1792 but, by 1799, the southern section was incomplete and, due to insufficient funds, the proposed aqueduct over the Ribble was shelved.

By 1803, a temporary horse-drawn tramway had been built to connect the southern section with the new canal north of Preston. With the arrival of the railways, however, the temporary tramway became permanent and the aqueduct was never built.

The dream of connecting the Lancaster Canal to the rest of the inland waterway network never fully died, however, and an alternative scheme was devised to canalise the Savick Brook at the southern end of the waterway. The £5.4 million project received a major boost when the Ribble Link Trust successfully bid for a grant of £2.7 million from the Millennium Commission. Construction work started in December 2000 and the Link opened to navigation in July 2002.