The Cheshire Ring is made up of the Trent and Mersey Canal (Kidsgrove Staffordshire to Preston Brook near Runcorn),
the Bridgewater Canal (Preston Brook to Castlefields Manchester),
Rochdale Canal (Castlefields to Piccailly basin Manchester city centre),
Ashton Canal (Piccadilly Basin to Portland basin in Ashton Under Lyne),
Peak Forest Canal (Portland basin to Marple near Stockport)
and the Macclesfield Canal, (Marple to Kidsgrove).
It is 97 miles, 93 locks and takes about 55 hours of cruising to get around. For more information visit: http://www.britains-waterways.com/ringchesh.htm
Don't be Discouraged, Heartbreak hill doesn't refer to steep climb but is a nickname given to the cheshire locks by boaters.
Heartbreak hill is a flight of 26 locks spread out over 7 miles dropping the canal from harecastle tunnel and the summit of the canal onto the cheshire plain
The locks were opened in 1777, but the traffic using the canal got so great that the canal company appointed the engineer Thomas Telford to improve the navigation in 1830, an additional tunnel at harecastle was built and all the 26 locks of the cheshire locks were duplicated except for the two Pierpoint locks, why these 2 were not duplicated is not now known.
This is one of our favourite bits of the cheshire locks
In the village of Hassal green used to have an excelent pub The Romping Donkey and a great restaurant Lock 57 (sadly no more) and next to the canal by the parking is the Potters barn which has lots of activities check out the link
