At The Published Coordinates you will find Marple Top Lock No.16
and Marple Junction, where the Maccelsfield Canal begins its
journey Southwards to Kidsgrove,
if you are traveling the Cheshire Ring then you will turn right
under the bridge after leaing the Top Lock,
but if you have time then a diversion along The Upper Peak Forest
Canal is well worth your time as it winds high above the Goyt
valley before terminating at the newly reopened basin complex at
Buxworth.
Marple locks were completed in 1805 and form a very pleasent
flight of 16 deep locks that begin in the centre of Marple and drop
towards the Goyt valley through some very pleasant woodland.
The locks raise the level of the canal by 209 feet over a distance
of 1½ miles between the Aqueduct and Top Lock House.
Many will be surprised though, as I was, to learn they were not
completed until nearly five years after the canal was first put
into full use.
The canal was built to transport limestone from the quarries at
Dove Holes in the Peak District to the Ashton Canal and on to
Manchester. There was a great demand in these times for lime.
Produced by burning limestone with coal, it was spread on fields as
a fertilizer and also used in the building and textile finishing
trades.
Construction of the Upper section of the canal, from Top Lock to
Bugworth, was completed in August 1796. Samuel Oldknow, who was
instrumental in the construction of the canal, built the Lime Kilns
at Top Lock to take advantage of this new business opportunity and
by the middle of 1797 had taken his first delivery of limestone.
The coal necessary was obtained from a number of local canal-side
pits including one called Picky Wood near Brickbridge.
In the meantime work on the lower level, including the aqueduct,
had stopped in March 1797 due to financial difficulties. Although
these problems were eventually overcome, allowing the lower level
to be finished in 1799 and the Aqueduct in 1800, the Canal Company
could still not afford to build the locks that were planned to join
the two sections together.
It was vital that some means of making this connection was found,
enabling both parts of the canal to be used whilst the necessary
finances were raised to complete the locks.
The solution chosen was to construct a tramway between these two
points as a temporary measure and this was also completed in 1800.
The tramway was an inclined plate-way and when first constructed
was only a single track with passing places. Offloading from boat
to wagon at the upper level and then from wagon to a different boat
at the lower level proved to be a very inefficient and time
consuming operation.
Traffic was so heavy that even with twenty-four hour working the
system was not able to cope and in 1801 a second track was
added.
The wagons, which were made of wood and iron, carried a load of two
tons each as they descended the track under the force of gravity
and returned uphill by rope. On a busy day up to three hundred
wagonloads would transport around six hundred tons of cargo.
It's hard to image the peaceful and scenic towpath of today being
such a frantic hive of activity for twenty-four hours a day.
The tramway followed a route from Oldknow's Lime Kilns, across
what is now the Recreation Ground and proceeded roughly along the
present day St. Martin's Road. It then turned and crossed the route
of the canal just below lock 10, near the Tollgate Cottage, before
following the towpath as far as Station Road. Beyond this point the
route is uncertain but is likely to have followed a path similar to
the current roadway to the Aqueduct on the opposite side of the
canal to the towpath.
The Canal Company's financial problems were eventually resolved
in 1803 after Richard Arkwright made a loan of £24,000, only £3,000
less than the full cost of the locks. Construction was undertaken
by contractors James and Fox and work was finally completed in late
1805, although the first passage through them is said to have been
made following completion of Posset Bridge in 1804 by Oldknow, in
his boat "Perseverance".
Traffic was so great during this time that the tramway continued
in use for another two years after completion of the locks and was
not dismantled until 1807. Hardly a trace of the tramway remains
visible today, although the banking across the Recreation Ground
between Strines Road and Oldknow Road can still be made out near
the children's play area. The only other remaining evidence is very
hard to spot unless you know exactly where to look. Below lock 10,
just past the steps that gave the boatmen access to Tollgate
Cottage, you can still see the grooves in the stonework where the
track once cut diagonally across the canal.
Oldknow Limekilns were built above Strines road and after
completion of the locks were served at both top and bottom by canal
arms, the top arm ran from between locks 14 and 15 and allowed
limestone and coal to be unloaded by boat straight into the Kilns,
whilst the bottom arm left the locks below Posset bridge lock 13,
there is still an extra arch below the bridge for it to use, this
branch has been infilled. The boats would have loaded lime straight
from the sheds and delivred it across Cheshire and Manchester
The above was taken from Marple Locks a virtual tour:(Marple
Locks Virtual Tour).
Find at the coordinates a signpost that was erected in memory of
one of the driving forces in the restoration movement that saved
the peak forest and Ashton canals from dereliction and
infilling.
To find the Cache you must note the Following:
Distance to Whaley Bridge = A.5 miles
Distance to Macclesfield = BB miles
Distance to Middlewich = C0 miles
Distance to Stoke-on-Trent = DD miles
Enter these into the Following to obtain the cache
coordinates;
N53`2D.CAB W002`0D.D(A+D-B)(C-B)
The Cache is Not Hidden in the wall!!!