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From Colne, an opportunity to cycle a section of the famous Leeds - Liverpool Canal, Britain's longest man-made canal, 127 miles in length. This is the third canal towpath encountered so far but the most significant, as it played a major role in the prosperity of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and indeed the country, in the 18th and 19th centuries.
At the time, the canal provided a desperately needed passage for goods and minerals such as textiles and coal. It was via the canal that a single waterway linked the Irish Sea to the North Sea - the canal joined the Aire and Calder canal at Leeds which then linked up with the North Sea. During the Industrial Revolution the canal was the main trade link with the outside world and the fortunes to be made through exports to foreign countries.
The building of the canal started in 1777 but money ran out and construction ceased until 1790, when work began again. It was not until 1864 however that this ambitious goal of building a Leeds to Liverpool canal was finally realised. Once built, the barges along the waterway carried many different goods and merchandise in the canal's heyday - wool to Yorkshire, grain from Liverpool docks to Lancashire, machinery for the mills, cement, groceries, beer and spirits. Trade began to decline though after the first world war, as road transport began to develop. Coal continued to be carried along the canal but demand for coal too gradually declined and the last regular traffic ended in 1972.
Today maintained by British Waterways, it's classed as a 'green linear park' and has been brought back to life again. Canal barges travel through its 91 locks again, it has its own garage, and cyclists carefully share the towpaths with walkers and joggers.
