Canal & River Trust - Huddersfield & the Calder Valley

11/04/2026

21/03/2026

19/03/2026

Sorry about the stoppage on the Rochdale canal at lock 23 yesterday and today. The job is done and it will be full of water by the morning and the stoppage will be off first thing in the morning. The offside paddle frame paddle rod and rack were all in the bottom of the canal when we go to the job yesterday. We have made both sides good while we were there. Thank you for your patience.

19/02/2026

Diving into the Big Paddle Project! 🤿

Working alongside a great crew of skilled divers. They’ve been tackling the jobs we just couldn’t reach ourselves—I definitely couldn't hold my breath long enough! 😂
The diving team completed a couple of vital jobs for us on the Rochdale Canal East. They even have the specialist gear to drill, grind, and weld underwater, which has been a huge help in getting our paddles back in action.
Great to have these experts on board to help us hit our April goal!

16/02/2026

BIG PADDLE PROJECT
Our Customer Operations team covers the Rochdale Canal (East), the Huddersfield Broad Canal, and the Huddersfield Narrow Canal (East). We look after approximately 24 miles of beautiful Pennine canals, including 84 locks and 354 paddles.
We are on a big push to get them all working perfectly before the end of April.
We are making fantastic progress on this massive project:
* Huddersfield Broad Canal: We are down to the last two paddles! Our team has put in a lot of work on these locks over the last four years to get them into top shape.
* Huddersfield Narrow Canal: All paddles from Lock 1E to Lock 42E (at the summit) 168 paddles are now in good working order.
* Rochdale Canal: We still have a bit of work to do here. Out of 132 paddles, there are only 8 left that we aren't happy with yet—but we are getting there!
As the weather improves and you start using the canals more, please let us know if you come across a paddle that isn't working properly. You can let us know by sending a private message to this page.
From our team to you—we hope you have a fantastic time out there on our canals! this summer.

08/11/2025

What a beautiful time of year Autumn is. Here some photos from around your canal network. If you have any please let’s see them.

03/11/2025

Huddersfield narrow canal.
One of our contracts The Rothen Group helping CRT DS team with stoppeges on lock 18E and 15E.
Putting there boats in at pound 7E and loading them up to navigate up the canal.

The Rothen Group.

Lock’d and loaded!
Our fleet of specialist crane boats have been deployed to assist CRT with their stoppages. Some are loaded with lock gates at our wharf and floated to site, ahead of changing the lock gates with the crane and then floating the old lock gates back for recycling. The boats provide storage for pumps and pipes as well as providing welfare for the on site teams. The narrow beam crane boats have specific gate frames within the hold to support the gates during transit

23/10/2025

It's nearly Halloween.
Most of these photos are looking from the 1847 railway tunnel into the 1811 canal tunnel. The railway boys put 37 shafts through from the railway tunnel they were building into the canal tunnel so they could get all the stone out on work boats. When your sat in the railway on your own waiting to check on boats going through the canal tunnel in the dark tunnel you can hear the boys from back in the 17/18 hundreds digging the canal tunnel and chatting as they work. If you look down the railway tunnel for a long time you can see steam trains coming down the tunnel. There was about 50 man lots their lives building the canal tunnel in about 17 years it took to build the canal tunnel. It was solid rock all the way through 600 foot under the pennies and about 3 miles to get though by hand. They drilled holes with star drills it is a bit like a big chisel with a star drills shape on the end. One man hold the and another man would hit it with a very big hammer in the dark with only a candle to see with. One drilled hole would take about 90 minutes they would drill a few pack them with black powder a fuse stand back about 100 feet and blast away.