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The Manchester Ship Canal is a 36-mile (58 km) long river navigation in North West England. Built to give the city of Manchester direct access to the sea, it was built between 1887 and 1894 at a cost of about £15M, and in its day was the largest navigation canal in the world. The canal roughly follows the original route of the rivers Mersey and Irwell, along its course using several sets of locks. The canal can accommodate a range of vessels, from coastal ships to intra-European shipping, and inter-continental cargo liners, although the canal is not large enough to accommodate some of the larger modern vessels. A railway was built to transport goods to and from the docks located alongside the canal. Today the canal is not considered to be an important shipping route but still carries about six million tonnes of freight each year. It remains privately owned. The idea that the Rivers Mersey and Irwell should be made navigable from the Mersey Estuary in the west to Manchester in the east was first proposed in 1660, but it was not until 1720 that the necessary parliamentary bills were passed to create the Mersey & Irwell Navigation. Work began in 1724, and by 1734 boats were able to make the journey to the sea from quays along Water Street in Manchester. The Mersey and Irwell was navigable only by small ships, and during periods of drought or strong winds there was not always sufficient depth of water for a fully laden boat. The completion in 1776 of the Bridgewater Canal, followed by the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830, created increased competition for the carriage of goods. In 1844 ownership of the Mersey & Irwell Navigation was transferred to the Bridgewater Trustees, and in 1872 it was sold to The Bridgewater Navigation Company for £1,112,000. It had by then begun to fall into disrepair; in 1882 it was described as being "hopelessly choked with silt and filth", and was open to 50-ton (51 t) boats for only 47 out of 311 working
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Photo credit: © 19th era / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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