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The Huddersfield Narrow Canal was completed in 1811 and runs from Huddersfield in West Yorkshire to Ashton under Lyne in Greater Manchester as part of the ‘Pennine Ring’ and is approximately 20 miles in length.
At first the canal meant prosperity and Slaithwaite became a famous port where textile goods manufactured locally were sent to the Cities and other goods imported. Smuggling, using the canal, was also apparently rife and the local Moonraker legend is evidence of this.
The onset of the railways in the middle and late 19th Century saw the demise of the canal system as a means of transporting goods and by 1944 the canal had been formally closed. In the 1970’s section that ran through Slaithwaite was filled in. It took nearly thirty years to get the process reversed, but in January 2000 work commenced on the restoration of the entire canal. The project is due to be completed in April 2001 costing some £31 million pounds.
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