Construction of the Rochdale Canal started in 1794 after the passing of the Rochdale Canal Bill.  It was designed to link the Bridgewater Canal in Castlefield, Manchester, with the Calder and Hebble Navigation at Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire.  The canal was first mooted in 1766 but a variety of problems needed to be resolved before permission to build the canal was finally secured.  Among those difficulties was just how the canal would cross the summit of the Pennines, and overcoming the refusal of the Duke of Bridgewater to allow the Rochdale Canal to join his canal in Castlefield.  By 1799 the Rochdale Canal was opened into the heart of Manchester's industrial/commercial centre.  By 1890 2,000 barges were plying the canal carrying 700,000 tons a year.  However, competition with the railway saw a sharp decline in trade and by the beginning of the 20th Century the canal was in serious difficulty.  By 1952 only the section through Manchester's city centre was still operating but by the 1960s much of that remaining section was unusable.  A restoration movement in the 1990s saw the canal reopened between Sowerby Bridge and Castlefield.

The images below trace the progress of the Rochdale Canal through the Manchester City centre starting in Ancoats.

Here the canal is passing the former Flint Glass factory of Percival, Yate & Vickers.  Much of the old factory has gone and around the remaing buildings this residential complex, called Flint Glass Wharf, has been created.

Progress at this point takes the canal between the restored Royal/Murray Mills and the yet to be completed New Islington development.

A small footbridge, called The Kitty Bridge, spans the canal as it approaches Great Ancoats Street.  Nearby Lock 82 lowers boats coming into Manchester allowing them to pass beneath Great Ancoats Street.

Beyond Great Ancoats Street the canal passes the Brownsfield Mill before encountering Lock 83 which lowers it once more to pass beneath the Tariff Street bridge.

Having passed beneath Tariff Street boats now enter the Piccadilly Basin.  Former warehouses in the basin have been restored for a variety of commercial and residential purposes and newer developments surround the canal at this point.

It is in the Piccadilly Basin that the Ashton Canal joins the Rochdale Canal.  You can see the Ashton Canal appearing on the left of the image below having passed beneath the bridge on Ducie Street.

Lock 84 stands at the Dale Street end of the Piccadilly Basin and marks the beginning of an underground segment of the canal taking it beneath Piccadilly before re-emerging beside Auburn Street in the vicinty of Aytoun Street.

After the canal passes under Aytoun Street it emerges beside the Police & Crown Courts.  Once underneath the Minshull Street Bridge, the canal continues beside Canal Street, the heart of Manchester's Gay Village.

After crossing below Princess Street, the canal appears again in a long straignt section that seems to come to a dead end.  However, you can just glimpse Lock 88 which lowers the canal again to allow it to travel beneath the St. James Building and Oxford Street.

Once it has passed beneath Oxford Street, the canal re-emerges beside the Tootal Broadhurst Building, Churchgate House, and the apartment blocks along Whitworth Street West.

Just before the canal reaches Lock 89 a side canal joins with it.  This is a remnant of the former Manchester and Salford Junction Canal.  (This canal once started at the Irwell near Water Street and passed beneath the present Granada Studios, Deansgate and the Midland Railway Goods Yard and finally below the former Central Station until re-emerging beyond Lower Mosley Street in the vicinity of the Bridgewater Hall.)

After Lock 89, the canal passes between Albion Wharf and The Hacienda apartments.  It goes beneath the Gaythorne Bridge and enters Lock 90.

As the canal carries on beside Whitworth Street West it passes a series of bars built into the arches below the railway viaduct. 

This was the last stretch of the canal before Lock 92, the Duke's Lock, which lowers the canal for the last time before it passes under this stone bridge into the Castlefield Basin of the Bridgewater Canal.