Canal Walks

OVERVIEW

It was never really my plan to do much canal walking, but I find that they break up walks over hillier terrain whilst still offering a very attractive landscape.

At the same time, these canals are full of history as they were at one point the main transport routes through the countryside. Most canals can be found north of London and south of Leeds. 

PRACTICALITIES

Canal walks are generally very easy walks - partly because they are fairly flat (for obvious reasons) and partly because they tend to have train lines running parallel to their course. 

In addition, there are always frequent towns along the stretch of these canals, which make accommodation very straight-forward.

You do, however, have to be careful about weather conditions - and canals are not a place to go walking during times of flood - or after periods of heavy rains (when the banks can be unstable). 

Otherwise though, these are lovely places to go walking.

CANALS WALKED

Liverpool & Leeds Canal (★★★★☆) 

The Liverpool & Leeds Canal is a 126 miles long and I have started walking sections of this canal - and have so far found pretty amazing countryside. Being such a long canal it has it's own page on this site with each of the stages of the canal detailed individually.

The canal features very briefly on the Pennine Way and is very easily accessible along it's expanse.

It can also be used as a coast-to-coast train in conjunction with the Aire and Calder Navigation.

It is generally a flatter, but more meandering canal, with lots of swing bridges along it's route.

Rochdale Canal (★★★★☆) 

The Rochdale Canal is a fairly short canal at 32 miles that runs from Manchester to Sowerby Bridge. This follows a similar route to the Liverpool & Leeds Canal, but takes a more aggressive route. This reduces the distance of the canal, but results in 91 locks (or three per mile of navigation).

The western end of this canal is a fabulous walk along a route that runs from Littleborough, past Todmorden to Hebden Bridge (with the Pennine Way running on the ridge above the canal on this stretch), and on through Mytholmroyd to Sowerby Bridge (where it connects to the Calder Navigation).

The further end has some nice sections, but is overall far less enjoyable as it heads out from Manchester, through Rochdale, and on to Littleborough.