The Bridgewater Canal in Cheshire 93 Salford Applied Archaeology Series, Volume 1 early-nineteenth centuries. 1 It also provided access to the sea, allowing goods to be brought either directly to Manchester without being transhipped at Liver- pool docks or being transhipped into Mersey Flats at the Duke’s Quay at Liverpool and then sailed across the Mersey estuary to Runcorn. Either route provid- ed an alternative to the Mersey and Irwell Naviga- tion, the Bridgewater’s chief rival until the company bought the Navigation in 1844. It thus lifted the Bridgewater Canal from a primarily local venture to an innovative transport network of national im- portance. The line was first surveyed in 1762 for the third Act 2 and the Runcorn terminus received its first load- ed vessel of 50 tons from the Mersey on New Year’s Day 1773, although the completion of the line of the The Bridgewater Canal in Cheshire: Recent Archaeological Investigations Michael Nevell Introduction The western extension of the Bridgewater Canal, running between Manchester in the east and Run- corn in the west, (Fig 10.1) has been relatively over- looked, archaeologically and historically, compared to the stretch from Worsley to Castlefield. A cursory glance at the bibliography at the end of the current volume shows the majority of attention from archae- ologists and historians has been focused upon the Barton Aqueduct, Castlefield canal basin, Worsley underground mines, and Worsley terminus. Yet the extension to Runcorn gave the Bridgewater access to the great agricultural estates of northern Cheshire whose produce helped to feed the enormous popula- tion growth of Manchester in the late-eighteenth and Fig 10.1: The line of the Bridgewater Canal through Cheshire, c. 1776 (courtesy of Chetham’s Library). Chapter 10