Fairbottom Branch Canal

It terminated at Fenny Fields Bridge, Bardsley, which is situated in the Medlock Valley between Ashton-under-Lyne and Oldham.

This community was founded in 1783 by Samuel Lees to make rollers for the textile industry.

Around 1800, water was being supplied to this canal by Fairbottom Bobs, a Newcomen engine working for mine drainage.

[1] At first, waggon haulage on the tramway was by means of horses but early in the 1840s a steam locomotive called ‘The Ashtonian’ replaced them.

In the early 1930s two leakages occurred that made it necessary to lower the water level in the canal and this, coupled with mining subsidence, caused its unofficial closure in 1932.