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RIVERS, CANALS and COTTONOPOLIS...
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Here is the first Barton Aqueduct crossing the River Irwell. The Aqueduct was designed by James Brindley and opened in 1761. It was demolished in 1893 to be replaced by Barton Swing Aqueduct to allow large ocean-going ships to pass on their way to Manchester Docks.
Barton Aqueduct was built to take the Bridgewater Canal across the Riover Irwell without the need to use a flight of locks, which would have been very time-consuming. Britain's first major commercial canal took coal from Worsley right into central Manchester at Castlefield, thereby giving Manchester a great advantage in its progress to becoming the world's leading industrial city, knicknamed "Cottonopolis" because of its importance in the textile trade.
In the foreground are lock gates; the River Irwell had been adapted as part of the Mersey and Irwell Navigation in the eighteenth century, so that locks helped to enable boats to sail along a more controlled waterway.
Boats took cargoes right into Manchester: hence the city's Quay Street, so-named as it was near to where cargoes were unloaded.
Beyond the stone aqueduct can be seen All Saints' school. The school building was also demolished in 1893 and the school relocated on Trafford Road.
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