Cheshire’s Anderton Boat Lift has been described as both the ‘Cathedral of the Canals’ and the ‘Industrial Revolution’s greatest waterway wonder’.
This grand edifice of Victorian engineering underwent a £7-million refurbishment and reopened to boat traffic in 2002.
Last summer Keith Langston visited the lift together with the late Fred Dibnah and his film crew, prompting a look back at what must surely become one of the decade’s most successful industrial restoration projects.

Future generations may well question whether the grant money from the Heritage Lottery Fund was wisely invested on their behalf. In the case of the Anderton Boat Lift, £3.3-million of HLF funding was made available, but perhaps an equally-important fact is that over 2000 private individuals contributed to the scheme - raising between them a further £430,000.
The success of the appeal, and the resultant rebuilding of the ‘lift’, is testament to the affection which the local population have for their distinctive Victorian structure. After all, it has been part of the Cheshire scene since 1875 and its uniqueness is something which Northwich people still proudly boast. But it could so easily have continued to decay, or worse still have been allowed to fall into such a state of disrepair that demolition would have become the only option. Having become unsafe to operate, the lift closed to traffic in 1983.

Workers inside one of the caissons repairing damage caused by corrosion due to the polluted waters of the river and canal. The rivet in the young boy’s tongs can be seen as being ‘hot’.

Such was the intensity of promotion staged by the various interested groups involved, that there was hardly a resident in Mid-Cheshire not made aware of the aims and aspirations of those connected with the Anderton Boat Lift Appeal. Perhaps in these times, which we are told herald the beginning of a shrinking lottery pot upon which are to be made even greater and more varying demands, the addition of community self-help of this kind may be the only way to ‘get the job done’.
This project was made possible, in part, by the strong partnership forged between the Waterways Trust, the Inland Waterways Association, the Anderton Boat Lift Trust, the Friends of Anderton Boat Lift, the Association of Waterways Cruising Clubs, British Waterways and the Trent and Mersey Canal Society. The fact that the local populace were supportive and enthusiastic must have encouraged the partnership in their endeavours.

Fred’s boat now at river level...

The newly restored lift is well-used and the modern visitor centre associated with it not only pays its own way, but makes a profit. The fee for boat traffic using the facility is included in the cost of the annual waterways boat owners’ licence. The subsequent increase in pleasure boat traffic on the Weaver Navigation, having used the lift to travel between the river and the Trent & Mersey Canal, would appear to more than justify this particular investment in our industrial heritage.
The salt industry in Mid-Cheshire was directly responsible for the commercial success of the lift, but ironically that same mineral was in part responsible for problems encountered with the structure some 25 years after its introduction. The reopening of the lift is a real compliment to the Victorian engineers who originally connected the canal and the river by using a hydraulically powered lift.
The Weaver Navigation engineers at the turn of the century were forced to convert the lift to electrical power following severe corrosion problems. Reverting to the original Victorian concept the engineers of 2002, albeit with the benefit of modern technology, again rebuilt the lift and configured it to work, once again, hydraulically.

End of the On-line article.
Subscribe here | Buy a single issue at the cover price (P&P included) | Backissues here