Todmorden
|
|
|
|
|
|
Travellers have been passing through Todmorden for hundreds of years. Before the motorway was built across the Pennines, the town stood astride the easiest route between Lancashire and Yorkshire. The road along the Calder Valley and through the Walsden Gorge to Rochdale never rises to more than 600 feet above Level, sheltered from the worst extremes of the fickle Pennine weather.
Many centuries previously, Bronze Age people built settlements on the uplands overlooking the site of the present town and their pathways followed the high ground. The Romans built military roads to link Manchester with their fort at Ilkley. Saxon soldiers lead by King Athelstan no doubt trod the Long Causeway, traversing the hillside parallel with the present day road to Burnley, as they march to do battle with Alfa’s Danish army on nearby Worsthone Moor.
It was the arrival of the canal that had the greatest impact on Todmorden. First surveyed by John Rennie but constructed by William Crossley with William Jessop as a consultant, the Rochdale Canal was the first to be cut through the Pennines. In 1798 the link was made between Rochdale and the Calder and Hebble Navigation at Sowerby Bridge and the canal was opened all the way through to Manchester in 1804. A canal boat drawn by a single horse could carry 600 times as much as a packhorse or 20 times the load of a wagon requiring a team of horses. In Todmorden the bridge which carries the Rochdale road over the canal has a horse tunnel, just large enough to lead the tow horse through as the barge was taken through the adjacent lock. Grooves made by the towropes can still be seen in the stonework. In the early 19th century the canal would be busy with traffic , with good being loaded and unloaded at the various wharves which served the mills in the town. The canal turned Todmorden into a cotton town, with its eyes towards Manchester and Liverpool rather than the woollen centres of the West Riding.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
User reviews of Todmorden |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
If you have visited Todmorden in Todmorden, why not write a review to help other UK Destination Guide users get the most from their trip? Click the link below for details... |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
 |
Hotel Options |
 |
 |
|
|
| |
| Budget Hotels |
Premier Budget Hotels |
Late Availability |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
