Between the Old Rock and a Hard Place

Today's photo opportunity was generated by a meeting this morning with Peel Holdings at their Trafford Shopping Centre offices. The Peel Group own the Trafford Centre, Ship Canal and Bridgewater Canal (and much more).

By way of a response, this got me thinking back to both my Grandad Reg, taking his private flying lessons at nearby Barton Aerodrome in the mid 1930's (he later enlisted and became a Navigator on Short Sunderland Flying Boats on Atlantic duty during WWII); and his father, my Great-Grandad, Davies running the Old Rock pub near to Barton Road Swing Bridge on Peel Green Road on his retirement from the police after the war.

As it turned out, the site of the pub in 'Barton-Upon-Irwell' was just around the corner from my meeting, and I was pleased to find that it is still a working pub - albeit now the re-named Rock House Hotel.

The two 'swinging turntable' bridges that cross the Manchester Ship Canal at Barton, are the Barton Road Swing Bridge and the Barton Swing Aqueduct. Both rotate open to allow ships to pass by. The former takes road traffic over, whilst the latter carrys a slice of canal water from the Bridgewater Canal. The clue might seem to be in the name of the 'Bridgewater' Canal, though this is just coincidence, as Francis Egerton the third Duke of Bridgewater completed it in 1731, whilst the Manchester Ship Canal was not completed until 1893.

To take my shot today, I stood on the road swing bridge looking west, and so the swing aqueduct is behind me and out of view. My view is actually looking towards the newer Barton Bridge that carries the M60 orbital motorway traffic around Manchester. Beyond that is the historic Barton Aerodrome site.

I show my own age, if I tell the tale of my dad taking me in my pram in 1960 on the nearly completed Barton Motorway bridge just before it opened (then part of the M63 and forerunner of M62 and M60).

To compensate for leaving-off the swing aqueduct and The Rock, I have uploaded a few shots to my Blip Fotoblog here - though you can just see the chimneys to the Old Rock over the trees on the far right in this.

Even better, you can see the opening and closing of both swinging bridge and aqueduct on Youtube here. This video is only 1:22 long and with quite a cool jazz track, so well worth checking out to see the context.

Postscript: MrJohn kindly pointed out since, that this must be Swing Jazz :-)