Preston’s Lost Canal Basin

Historical Profiles: NarrowBoat, Spring 2025

Daniel Crowther follows the rise and fall of the Lancaster Canal’s lost transhipment basin

On 22nd November 2025, the Lancaster Canal will celebrate its 228th year. Despite the canal’s official name and its genesis in the county town of Lancaster, nowhere benefited from the opening of the waterway more than Preston. Built in two halves and interposed by a 4½-mile-long double-track tramroad, the canal formed a nexus at Preston Basin where, from 1803, an extension of the canal’s North End met the canal company’s tramroad head on. Planning and deliberations involved some of the greatest engineering minds of the era: John Rennie and William Jessop plotted the original line. Lesser-known figures like resident engineer William Cartwright, who had overseen the construction of the Lune Aqueduct, ensured the canal’s two halves were united by tramroad. For 144 years, Preston Basin transhipped Wigan coal north and Westmorland limestone south. Today, the North End and the South End of the canal are truncated at three of its four ends: at Canal Head in Ken…