Ellesmere Port in limbo

From the Archives: NarrowBoat, Summer 2026

Joseph Boughey

Joseph Boughey explores details of the Cheshire site before the opening of the National Waterways Museum

I volunteer regularly at Ellesmere Port, currently helping to catalogue files in a substantial collection deposited by British Waterways in the Waterways Archive in 1994-5. I recall the site before there was any question of developing a museum there, and later discovered that the threats to its existence after 1955 were many and pressing. On each visit, I remain struck that, through a series of factors, the canal and many buildings were somehow able to survive. It is instructive to sit in the archive there, cataloguing files which deal with this very place. This article provides insights mainly from one file (CRT/BW/95/350) and the threats from wider port development. Decline and discussion…