Cheshire Ring

Cheshire Ring Hire Guide

The Cheshire Ring is a popular canal ring in the North West of England and, despite its name, passes through both Cheshire and Greater Manchester and a very small section in Staffordshire. At 97 miles long and with 92 (mostly narrow) locks it's a route that can be completed in an active week or a more relaxed two week hire making it particularly popular with holiday boaters.

A view of some of the Locks in the Bosley Locks, one of lock flights on this canal ring. © David Jones. Licensed under Creative Commons

If you start at a hire base on the ring itself, you can expect to cruise for 53-54 hours. Over a one week canal boat hire, this is an average of 7-8 hours per day so is very do-able for a committed crew, but do make sure that all members of your crew would like to be cruising for 7-8 hours of the day. A two week hire would make for a more relaxed canal boat hire, taking only 3.5 cruising hours per day if you start on the ring itself or 5 hours per day if you start at one of our family-run partner boat hire bases which will add an additional 30 miles or so to your route.

Of the locks on the Cheshire ring the vast majority are narrow locks and in flights such as the Marple Locks, Bosley Locks, Cheshire Locks (also known as Heartbreak Hill) being narrow they can be worked reasonably easily by even small crews and being in flights you'll have a day or half a day of lock-wheeling, followed by a day or two of lock free cruising.

There are 10 broad locks on the Cheshire Ring, these being a flight of nine on the Rochdale Canal between the Ashton Canal and the Bridgewater Canal and Big Lock on the Trent & Mersey near Middlewich. These are still very much do-able even by a small crew but expect the gates to be larger and heavier, slightly harder to work and therefore to spend more time per lock than on the narrow locks.

The surroundings

A view from the Canal in Poynton, from which you can walk into Lyme Park, a National Trust property. © Smabs Sputzer. Licensed under Creative Commons

With much of the route in Cheshire, there are frequently views of miles over the Cheshire Plain and on the Macclesfield Canal runs along Gritstone ridges to the east with views of Mow Cop, Bosley Cloud and White Nancy, all part of the Gritstone Trail. All can be accessed on walks from the canal and offer some superb views of the surrounding Cheshire countryside and the Derbyshire Peak District. In Greater Manchester the surroundings become more urban and the canal cuts right through the center of Manchester. Castlefields, at the junction of the Rochdale and Bridgewater canals, provides an excellent safe mooring from which to explore the City and its industrial heritage.

What can we visit away from the canal?

The canals on the Cheshire ring grew around the industries that required them, from the Silk mills in Macclesfield, Potteries in Stoke-on-Trent to the Salt mines in Middlewich and Northwich. You can learn a lot about these industries and the roles the canals played at museums such as the Lion Salt Works in Northwich, Macclesfield Silk Museum, Portland Basin Museum, Anderson Engine Museum in Higher Poynton, Discovery Center Bollington, Science and Industry Museum in Manchester and the Anderton Boat Lift and Visitor Center.

Once you've had your fill of history there are plenty of other attractions to visit on route, such as Little Moreton Hall, Dunnham Massey, Walton Hall & Gardens, Marbury Country Park and Anderton Nature Reserve. You can also explore Lymm, Bollington, Marple and a few other towns and villages along the way.

There are plenty of canal side Pubs to visit and you can use our ring route map above to find top rated canal side food and drink.