Halfpenny Bridge, Rochdale

A canal bridge with no canal!

 The Rochdale Branch Canal was a branch of the Rochdale Canal which led close to Rochdale Town Centre. It was in use from 1794, and was bordered by the landscaped gardens of Lark Mill House on the western bank until the 1850s. A number of industries grew up around the branch, ranging form cotton mills and an iron and brass foundry in the early years, to a bakery and jam manufactory, woolen mills and sawmills later on. The branch declined with the main canal, and was little used after the 1920s, although not officially abandoned until 1952. 


The Rochdale Canal was surveyed by John Rennie in June 1791, although he had no experience of building canals at the time. He was chosen because the engineers of choice, William Jessop and Robert Whitworth, did not have time for the project. In August 1791 Rennie was asked to conduct further surveys for a branch to Rochdale, another to Oldham and a third to some limeworks near Todmorden. The canal was authorised by an Act of Parliament on 4 April 1794, which created the Rochdale Canal Company and sanctioned the building of a canal across the Pennines from Sowerby Bridge, where it would join the Calder and Hebble Navigation, to Manchester, where it would connect to the Bridgewater Canal.
Construction of the whole canal would take around 13 years, but sections were opened as and when they became useful, and the Rochdale Branch, which was about half a mile (0.8 km) long, was opened in 1798, from a basin at Richard Street to Halfpenny Bridge. Additional sections were opened in 1799, and the canal was formally opened in 1804, but there seems to be some doubt that it was all constructed, for two more acts of parliament were obtained in 1804 and 1806 to raise additional finance, and a final one in 1807 to tidy up some loose ends.
Navigation on the main canal had all but ceased by 1927, and an act of parliament obtained in 1952 banned public navigation on most of the waterway. It lay dormant for 20 years, but between then and 2002 the waterway was steadily restored and reopened. In 2000, ownership of the canal transferred from the Rochdale Canal Company to British Waterways, but there are no plans to re-open the Rochdale Branch.
The branch was filled in at the end of the 1960s, and a retail shopping centre now covers most of the line of the canal, with the former basin serving as the car park. Just a short section from the junction to Durham Street remains in water, and is used as a turning point.