Mersey and Irwell Navigation

Mersey and Irwell Navigation
Stickings Lock on the River Irwell, c. 1850
Specifications
Status	mostly destroyed
History
Date of act	1721
Date completed	1734
Date closed	1880s
Geography
Start point	Salford
End point	Widnes

v t e Mersey and Irwell Navigation (1850)
Legend
River Irwell Salford wharfs Manchester and Salford Junction Canal Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal Branch to Bridgewater Canal Throstles Nest Lock Mode Wheel Lock Barton lock Barton aqueduct, Bridgewater Canal Stickings lock Holmes Bridge Lock Calamanco Lock River Irwell River Mersey Sandywarps lock Millbank Lock River Bollin Rixton double locks / Old lock Lymm loop River Woolston Lock Powder Mill Lock Woolston New Cut / Old Cut Paddington Lock Wooden Bridge (aqueduct) Latchford Lock Feeder from Woolston Cut Howley lock Runcorn and Latchford Canal Sankey Canal Sankey Lock Sankey Brook Fiddlers Ferry lock Old Quay locks Widnes lock, Sankey Canal River Mersey

The Mersey and Irwell Navigation was a river navigation in North West England, which provided a navigable route from the Mersey estuary to Salford and Manchester, by improving the course of the River Irwell and the River Mersey. Eight locks were constructed between 1724 and 1734, and the rivers were improved by the construction of new cuts several times subsequently. Use of the navigation declined from the 1870s, and it was ultimately superseded by the Manchester Ship Canal, the construction of which destroyed most of the Irwell section of the navigation and the long cut between Latchford and Runcorn.