Guide to Cruising the River Weaver

River WEAVER:(scroll down if necessary)
A river, in it’s natural state, is not much good for commercial boat traffic. Such boats need to travel a substantial length of the river and they don’t take kindly to shallows, ‘rapids’, or floods. To make a river suitable for commercial boats it needs to be converted, by means of engineering, to a ‘River Navigation’. This is done by building lock cuts to circumnavigate obstacles, such as natural weirs. Where appropriate the natural course is canalized to keep the depth suitable etc etc. So when we say the River Weaver we should more accurately refer to it as the ‘Weaver Navigation’. As a navigation, the Weaver has historically been the main transport to and from the sea (via the Mersey) for the Cheshire salt industry. It was made and adapted as a navigation suitable for quite large seagoing ships, with locks and water course of a suitable size. Sadly the seagoing craft no longer visit the navigation, although their heritage is very clear to see.


Willow (the larger of the two hotelboats) awaits her turn to ascend the Anderton Lift.	Willow (from a distance to show the relative size) emerges from the lowered caisson on the Anderton Lift.	Town Bridge at Northwich on the Weaver	Very pleasant moorings just below Saltersford Lock on the Weaver.

But the Weaver wasn’t just used by ships servicing the salt industry. Running very close to the newly constructed Trent & Mersey canal at Anderton, the ‘potteries’ could be served with a link to the sea via the Mersey. So a transshipment basin was constructed at Anderton, where goods could be transferred from the T&M canal down onto the river, 50ft below. Originally goods were transferred by various means such as chute, tramway, or even wheelbarrow. Then the Anderton Lift was constructed to lift narrowboats in water filled caissons up and down between the two levels - a real wonder of it’s time - opened in 1875 (Later derelict from 1982 until reopening in 2002).


Trip boats on the Weaver tend to be somewhat wider than Willow - but too wide to ascend the Anderton Lift onto the rest of the canal system.	Large sluice gates, like this at Saltersford, usually keep river water levels suitable for navigation.	Little Roseanne delivers her free range eggs direct to Willow in Saltersford Lock. Her marketing agent, Lock Keeper Bryn, supervises the safety aspects.	In a bygone age, railway style signals would indicate, to the approaching ships, the readiness or otherwise of Saltersford lock.

So to bring us up to date, we now regularly cruise the Weaver, by descending the Lift from the T&M. Don’t be fooled, despite the Weaver’s industrial past, it’s an interesting and often very attractive navigation. The Lift itself has been totally revamped and now boasts an attached visitor centre, with integral computerized operations room, situated in pleasant grounds. Once down on the River we can head upstream and moor up in Northwich town centre, perhaps for some shopping - perhaps see the huge swing bridges move aside for the odd bigger boat. Later we can head off down stream, past the Lift, to the very attractive setting of Saltersford Lock (huge - electrically operated - friendly BW staff).

Further downstream you would be forgiven for not realizing that we are fairly close to Industrial Frodsham and Runcorn. At 'Devils Garden', they are hidden from view, with only woodland, pleasant rural scenes and, riverside walks - very pleasant overnight moorings with no lights to be seen. Kingfisher sightings are commonplace. We can, later, continue downstream to sail past the oil refineries around Runcorn as the river heads for the Mersey - but we usually turn around for more peaceful upstream scenes.

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