Wigan Album

I'm no purist David....a canal, a bridge & a barge are ok with me whatever stretch they are on !

Second in command is using a barge pole.

The article is absolutely right and true, the serenity travelling by water. Superb photo once again.

I wonder where the photographer is stood, maybe zoomed in from another bridge or lock. Fantastic image, thank you.

I thought the mate was swabbing down the side decks to wash away the coal dust spilled when the barge was being loaded. He'll have earned his crust doing the locks up the Wigan flight - but he's a couple of hours before he'll have to get on his bike to get ahead to the locks on Johnson's Hillock.
Tommy - I hadn't thought about it - but the photographer's angle is a bit unusual - he must have been midstream. It's too far from the previous bridge at Red Rock for him to have taken his shot from there - and there's bend in between. Perhaps he was stood on the bows of another barge, moored up before the bridge.

I think this is a horse drawn barge because I can see a cart horse stood watching on the right of the bridge and this is why the crew member is using a barge pole to push it through.
I remember seeing these barges and one horse would pull two barges so the camera man might be stood at the front of another barge.

Calm, peaceful and tranquil what could be better. And once again crystal clear, nobody would disagree with that. Thanks Rev.

No horse Mick, it's a optical illusion. Eyes playing tricks.

The stick he's using is too flimsy to be a barge pole, and what would be doing with it in that position? Anyway - as Alan says, there is no horse in view, and I don't think two laden barges could be pulled by one horse. Also - you can see the water from the engine spilling out on the right of the stern - they were raw-water-cooled - pulling water in from the canal and through the engine. There's a coloured pic of the boat here:
http://www.leedsandliverpoolcanalsociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Brightwork-Leaflet.pdf - on which you can see the engine control on the cabin roof - its lever is just visible here under the steerer's left arm.

There is smoke coming from the exhaust stack pipe at the front of the barge, you can see smoke at the arch of the bridge. Perhaps a lister diesel engine?.

Well spotted Rev.

The chimney at the bows is from the stove in the cabin. It would be impracticable to run a prop shaft from there to the stern. The engine is in the cabin in front of the steerer. I believe the engines mostly installed on the L&L were Widdops.

Rev the only ever cart horse Ive seen on the canal was pulling two barges, this was in the 60s.
I can still a horse with a white nose on that bridge.

What was a cart horse doing pulling barges? Do you mean shires? One horse could pull two laden narrow boats - but not barges. What's a horse on the bridge (even if there were one, and there isn't) got to do with the haulage of the barge on the canal?

Mick book an oppintment at specsaver. As I've said before optical illusion.

All the big work horses used to just be called cart horses when I was a lad, and the cart horse I saw was pulling two wide beam canal barges that were full of coal that was going past the first swing bridge as you come from Gathurst.

I can’t see a horse either Mick , although I can just make out what appears to be the head and shoulders of a giant cat in the trees to the right of the bridge . Maybe he was pulling the two barges eh ?

MICK, the horses your taking about the rag and bone. They pulled a cart.

The canal at Arley runs parallel to the 1st on the golf course and many a tee shot would finish up in the cut. I remember as a boy that bargees would trawl that section searching for balls, maybe this is the location in this photo? Then the flimsy pole being used by the deckhand could be a trawling net.

I can see what Mick is on about, it's centre left of the bridge and looks like a horses head and shoulder with a horse collar, though it's more than likely the shape is in the tree i.e. leaves, branches and also pareidolia

To the extreme right of the bridge parapet say around an inch or so on the path there is another pareidolia or illusion of an horse with a fence post looking like a white nose stripe, is that what you mean Mick, if so then yes I can make that out also.

The figure centre left on the bridge looks more like an elderly Beatrix Potter mouse using a walking stick. .

The sightings are all optical illusions. Thr Reverend David makes more sense with his assessment.

Mouse it could be Poet, more that than Ozys flea bitten alley cat.

Alan, it isn't an optical illusion it is pareidolia, some people can make out pictures of faces or people, animals or objects in the pattern of objects or other things, it's like how children would look at clouds etc., and see the same or how some people saw things in tea leaves, and it isn't anything to do with smoking waccy baccy, eating funny mushrooms, licking Toads or kissing Frogs as those who aren't gifted in pareidolia like to say.

Wouldn't that photo look great in colour. It has everything.

Cyril absolute Nonsense!

Just had another look and I can’t see the cat now , but I can see King Neptune …
[ note to self : must resolve to lay off the hard stuff .]

These pareidolia of which you speak Cyril .
Any idea as to where I could obtain a packet of seeds , as they don’t appear to stock them at Wilko .
And are they hardy annuals or perennials ?
This is quite important as my Anderson shelter is north facing you see .

Many years ago a woman in a long white dress and hooded bonnet drowned herself by the left bank on the other side of the bridge .
A helmsman once told me he had seen her through the arch of the bridge , though he thought later that perhaps it was merely a puff of smoke .

These last few post have Started to be stupid, spoiling Rev Longs photos.