The making of the Canal

 

It was in 1765 that the engineer James Brindley and pottery manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood met at The Leopard public house in Burslem and resolved to build a canal to take production from the potteries to Runcorn before meeting the Port of Liverpool to ease the distribution of their wares.

This is a local section of it showing on the left the "Homes Ashore" from the late Victorian era the Lock and with it the lockkeepers cottage as we exit the city region to the countryside of Cheshire.

Sadly we lost The Leopard which goes back to the Eighteenth Century to a catastrophic fire on Saturday afternoon but it was here on Market Street, Burslem that one of the most important drivers of industrialization in this region that lent the unofficial nick-name "The Potteries" was born.