From Stourport-on-Severn to Shardlow if there is one thing that the Midlands are known for, then it is a plethora of inland ports, which had a brief heyday in the late 18th and early 19th Century when canals were the most efficient and effective means of conveying bulk goods quickly and safely.
What it less well known, is that some of the largest inland ports were in the far north of the region on the fringes of the Peak District.
The reason for this was the trade in the region’s valuable limestone, lead and gritstone. From High Peak Junction where it interchanged with the Cromford and High Peak Railway, north western Derbyshire’s mineral wealth was shipped south along the Cromford Canal. A waterway which took it south towards Nottingham and the River Trent. It was a similar story at Froghall in Staffordshire where Peak District limestone was loaded onto the barges that freighted it along the Caldon Canal towards Stoke-on-Trent and beyond.
These two major inland ports were small in size and economic importance compared to Bugsworth Basin at the bottom of the Peak Forest Canal.
The Peak Forest Canal is a relatively short inland waterway, running more or less due north for 14 miles from the edge of the Peak District to Ashton-under-Lyne due east of Manchester. However, throughout the 19th Century it was utterly crucial for the development of North Western England as Midlands limestone was shipped north towards the chemical industry and building sites of what is now Greater Manchester.
Thanks to its porous limestone geology the southern Peak District in Derbyshire and Staffordshire is poor terrain for canal building. This lead Benjamin Outram the Peak Forest Canal’s primary engineer to decide to end the canal at the village of Bugsworth rather than heading south towards the rich limestone quarries at Dove Holes (which operate to this day).
Instead the stone would be brought to Bugsworth Basin by an early form of horse drawn railway, the Peak Forest Tramway. Long horse drawn wagon trains on rails trundled down from the quarries to the start of the canal at Bugsworth where it was loaded onto docked narrowboats for transportation north.
Bugsworth Basin opened in 1796 and quickly became one of the busiest inland ports in the UK, and eventually the largest on the narrow canal network.
A testimony to the scale and important of the operation is the fact the Basin was extended numerous times. The final extension opened in 1878, well over a decade after the first railway reached the area.
Indeed the basin was at its busiest aroundabout 1900, attesting to the continued viability of Bugsworth Basin long after railways had poached other traffic from the canal.
The secret of this longevity and continued vitality is perhaps the fact that limestone did not have to move especially quickly. What was more important was a steady and reliable supply of this heavy, bulky material, making water carriage highly viable.
In the early 1920s however, traffic along the Peak Forest Tramway began to dwindle, with the line closing entirely in 1925. Bugsworth Basin followed it into obsolence shortly afterwards.
Like many other disused and derelict parts of the canal network in the early and mid 20th Century Bugsworth Basin was abandoned and filled in.
In 1968, however, as part of the burst of enthusiasm for Britian’s canals which burst forth during the post-war era work began to restore Bugsworth Basin as an operational canal basin. This was in concert with wider efforts to restore and revive the southern sections of the Peak Forest Canal.
Progress was slow, but steady, with the initial quixotic efforts of the volunteers eventually paying off nearly four decades later when Bugsworth Basin reopened in 2005.
The first narrowboat to leave the restored basin – fittingly – carried a shipment of Peak District limestone up to Ashton-under-Lyne at the far northern end of the Peak Forest Canal.
