Читать книгу The Ribble Way. A Northern England Trail онлайн

26 страница из 28

Despite the construction of the A59 bypass road, Penwortham New Bridge remains busy and is best crossed on its northern side at the traffic lights. The onward way hugs the riverbank along Broadgate, Riverside and then successively at the edge of a sports field, Miller Park and Avenham Park. Beyond that is a playing field, after which The Boulevard takes you past the outflow of the River Darwen, on the river’s opposite bank, to another of Preston’s main arteries, the A6 road at Walton Bridge.

PRESTON

Historically, Preston was the lowest point at which the Ribble could be bridged, and certainly it has no shortage of crossing points today. Upriver of Penwortham New Bridge is the graceful five-arched Penwortham Old Bridge, still standing but closed to traffic, while just beyond it stand the gaunt piers festooned with a jumble of service pipes and cables that once carried the West Lancashire Railway from Southport. Further on, the high and much-widened bridge overshadowing the Continental pub carries the West Coast main railway line into Preston Station, which lies just a few hundred yards up the hill to the north. The next bridge also served a railway, this time from Blackburn and the east, but trains are now routed round by the main line and the bridge is left for pedestrians, as is the next one at the far side of Avenham Park. In a way this last bridge is the most interesting, for it was built to carry the tramway that connected the two halves of the Lancaster Canal, and which ran from a basin in Aqueduct Street, northwest of the city centre, to Johnson’s Hillock beyond Whittle-le-Woods, a distance of some 8 miles (12.9km). The trucks were horse-drawn for most of its length, but stationary steam engines were employed at either side of the river to haul and lower trucks along straight inclines to the bridge. The present metal structure dates from 1860 and replaces a wooden one erected in 1802.