Saddleworth Museum, Ellesmere Port Boat Museum, the Regimental Museum of the Lancashire Fusiliers and Manchester Museums

Museums & Exhibitions
around Greater Manchester & Cheshire

The Boat Museum
Ellesmere Port

Dockyard Road, Ellesmere Port,
South Wirral, Cheshire L65 4ERF.
Tel: 0151-355 5017.
Fax: 0151-355 4079.

This multiple and international award winning museum is a must for all canal-lovers as well as being of great interest to the whole family. You may spend the day wandering freely around the old dockyard and go aboard many of its preserved working boats to see how the old navigators of Britain's Inland Waterways lived and worked. Or else there are guided tours and demonstrations taking place frequently throughout the day. There are over 60 boats and ships afloat, as well as standing boats, and these include narrow and wide beam boats, barges, tugs, icebreakers, wooden, steel and concrete boats. You can see many being restored and watch the blacksmith at work, or visit the engine house where many great steam and diesel engines are preserved in running order. There are static exhibitions with scale models and displays, video presentations and examples of canal craft and boat painting. Ample toilet facilities on site and refreshments at a café and a full (no smoking) restaurant. Regular 40 minute boat trips down the locks into the lower basin and other locking demonstrations are held periodically throughout the day. For the serious student there is an archive collection for research.

ADMISSION : Entrance charges apply, currently about £6.00 per adult with concessions for children, families and Senior Citizens (prices may change - please check). A full shop containing gifts, postcards, books and chandlery is available at the entrance.

LOCATION : From Manchester centre southwards via Princess Road and Princess Parkway to join the M56 Motorway. 40 miles or so and branch off at Junction 15 onto the M53 Motorway for a few miles to Ellesmere Port - the town and the Boat Museum are clearly signposted - look out for the Brown Tourist Signs. Travel time by car is about 45 minutes - 1 hour, depending on day and traffic. Open 7 days a week all year round.

MOORING : Mooring is available in the Lower Basin for visitors arriving via the Shropshire Union Canal.

High Street, Uppermill, Oldham.
Tel: 01457-874093 & 870336.

This museum, is in the centre of Uppermill Village on the A670 road east of Oldham town centre. It deals with the landscape and history of the Saddleworth area including surrounding towns of Uppermill and Diggle as well as the peat moorlands surrounding them.
There is a permanent exhibition of textile making machinery, reflecting Saddleworth's past industry - now sadly defunct.
It is open every day, and there is an admission charge payable. Set alongside the recently restored and reopened Huddersfield Canal, canal trips by narrowboat are available from the towpath side of the Museum in the summertime, up as far as the Brownhill Visitor Centre and return, passing under Saddleworth Viaduct.
There is a Tourist Information Centre and small café on site.

Regimental Museum of the Lancashire Fusiliers

Wellington Barracks, Bolton Road,
Bury BL8 2PL. Tel: 0161-764 2208.

This Bury museum traces the 300 year history of the Lancashire Fusiliers from 1688 to 1968. On display is a great deal of important military memorabilia including items which belonged to James Wolfe, the Battle of Minden, Napoleonic relics, mementoes of the Crimean War, the Battle of Omdurman, South African memorabilia of the 1914-18 Great War, and more generally of the Second World War.
There is also a collection of military uniforms from Waterloo (1814) to the present day, and a unique collection of medals and silver which includes 4 Victoria Crosses, from 1688 to the present day. Access to archive material is possible to serious scholars for research purposes by prior arrangement. An entry charge is payable.
Telephone for opening times. The Museum is located on the right hand side of the main A58 road from Bury to Bolton, just over 1 mile from the Bury Town Hall.