Monument record 125/1/1 - Bridgewater Docks

<1> Ashmore, O, 1982, The Industrial Archaeology of North West England, p.60 (Book). SCH3181.

Bridgewater Docks were developed from 1780 onwards. Old Dock 400ft by 120ft (122 x 37m) in use 1785, now filled in, and warehouse foundation visible. Canal Basin also in use by 1785 is also largely filled in.

<2> Ordnance Survey, 1871-1882, Ordnance Survey County Series (Epoch 1) 25 inch to 1 mile - Cheshire (Maps and Plans). SCH2462.

1st edition OS map show layout of locks prior to the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal.

<3> Nevell, M and Wyke, T, 2012, Bridgewater 250. The Archaeology of the Worlds First Industrial Canal, p.98-103 (Monograph). SCH8426.

The Runcorn Terminus was built in the years 1771-3 and by the early ninetheenth century had developed into an extensive complex of docks, locks, basins and wharves and warehouses surrounding the offices of the Bridgewater Canal, Bridgewater House.

<4> Nexus Heritage, 2019, Land at Former Riverside College, Campus Drive, Runcorn, Borough of Halton, Cheshire: Archaeological Watching Brief, R4325 (Client Report). SCH8723.

In 2019 an archaeological watching brief was undertaken for an area of land at the former Riverside College, Campus Drive, Runcorn, Halton, for which planning permission has been granted for a residential development.
The area lies within the area of the former eighteenth century Bridgewater Dock complex, including lengths of canal and basins, locks and wharfs.

The watching brief identified and recorded five sections of substantial sandstone block walling, centred at SJ 50415 83045, in places surviving to some 5m below the current ground surface. When overlaying the recorded remains of the walls onto earlier the Ordnance Survey mapping, they correlate with former dock/wharf structures, including a section of the walling for the lock linking Middle Basin with Old Basin; a section of the wharf wall bordering Old Basin, also sections of the wall associtated with Iron Ore Arm. The work demonstrated there is a demonstrable preservation in situ of archaeologcal features and deposits, also that the Site had been previously substantially backfilled.