Through Darkest Yorkshire

Built in stages between 1770 and 1816, the  Leeds & Liverpool Canal is Britain’s longest canal and arguably tis most scenic, meandering some 127 miles though the Pennines and along the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Included amongst its 92 locks is the Grade-I listed Bingley Five Rise – a set of staircase locks that take boats up or down the one-in-five grade from the floor of the Aire Valley. It was regarded as one of the world’s greatest engineering marvels when it opened in 1774. More than 30,000 spectators descended con the old market town of Bingle watch the first boats pass through the locks.  Two hundred and fifty-odd years later the Bingley Five Rise, like all the rest of the locks on this grand old canal, are still in daily use. I first arrived on the Leeds & Liverpool in 2024, coming up through Leeds via the Aire & Calder Navigation where I’d spent the previous winter. I’ve never left, but have been travelling back and forth along this lovely old waterway ever since.