Work has begun to restore lock gates across Greater Manchester’s historical canal network.
A team has started fitting new handmade gates at Lock 80 on the Rochdale Canal, a waterway opened in 1804 as the first of three trans-Pennine canals, running between Manchester and Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire.
The new gates, at the lock to the east of the city centre in Manchester, were handcrafted from oak in Yorkshire, before being craned into place.
Each leaf of the upstream gate weighs one-and-a-half tonnes (1,500 kg), and the downstream leaves weigh two-and-a-half tonnes (2,500 kg). They replace gates that were installed at the turn of the millennium.
It comes after canal gates were replaced in the stretch of canal running through Manchester’s Gay Village, in February.