Tuesday 18 January 2011

1970s photos of the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal seen again thanks to slide scanner

With some Christmas money I treated myself to a slide and film scanner from Maplin. This is it, the FS500 S1, bought for £29.99.


Installing the software on Jan's PC laptop was quick and easy, and I was soon scanning and uploading photos I hadn't seen for decades. While at Salford University, and staying in the (now demolished) Halls of Residence (Davy Hall, for the record), I borrowed an SLR, bought a roll of Fuji colour reversal film, and started snapping away at my surroundings, carefully recording the location, date, shutter speed and aperture. Fortunately the piece of paper with all this information has stayed with the slide box. I took all the photos here on 7th May 1978.


Within a mile was the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal, some of it still in water. The canal passed Agecroft Colliery and power station, both still operating at the time.


The above photograph shows a bridge over the canal...


... three and a half miles from Manchester (the junction with the Irwell?)


This bridgehole (?) was, as I remember, a little further towards Clifton Junction (but this was nearly 33 years ago!)

From the Peel Building, in which I had some lectures, I could see the dry canal bed as it ran next to an old railway line. The railway crossed under the A6 to emerge in a marshalling yard. Sadly I have no photos.

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