St Helens Canal, Hulme Lock

Image: © A-M-Jervis Taken: 14 Aug 2007

Despite being one of the earliest pound-lock canals in Britain, most of the St Helens Canal, earlier known as the Sankey Brook Navigation, between Warrington and Newton-le-Willows was filled in and landscaped during the 1970s. More recently the Sankey Canal Restoration Society have been allowed to conduct archaeological investigations in the Winwick area and have uncovered, inter alia, Hulme Lock. The tops of the walls of the still largely infilled lock chamber are on the left; to the right another stone-lined channel was a spillway or by-wash, allowing surplus water in times of heavy rain to bypass the lock without washing over the gates; eventually this water would be diverted into a nearby stream or river. Behind the fence on the right and at a slightly lower level was the lock-keeper's cottage, the foundations of which have also been dug out and conserved (as shown in another picture in this section).

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