Editing Preston, Lancashire (section)

====Lancaster Canal====
{{main|Lancaster Canal}}
[[File:Narrowboat_Lancaster_Canal_Preston_20180806.jpg|thumb|A [[narrowboat]] on the [[Lancaster Canal]] at [[Ashton-on-Ribble]]]]
The [[Lancaster Canal]] runs from Preston to [[Kendal]] in [[Cumbria]]. It was originally planned to join the [[Leeds and Liverpool Canal]] at [[Westhoughton]] and while the section north to near [[Chorley]] was built, the section south from Preston was never built. Instead, a "temporary" bridge – which still stands today – was constructed over the Ribble near Avenham Park, and a tramway operated from 1803 to [[Walton Summit]].{{Citation needed|date=January 2023}}

From 1820 [[packet boat]]s carried passengers between Preston and Kendal, providing faster journeys than the stagecoaches of the day, and by 1833 travel time had been reduced to seven hours. From the 1930s leakage problems caused sections of the canal, now owned by the [[London, Midland and Scottish Railway|LMS Railway]], around Kendal to be closed to public traffic. However, the canal remained navigable to coal traffic from Preston to the Kendal Gas Works until 1944, but in 1955 the whole canal was closed to all traffic by an Act of Parliament. Subsequently, sections of the canal were filled in, later to be re-opened as interest in the canal returned, and currently, {{convert|42|mi|km|1}} of the canal from Preston to [[Tewitfield]] near [[Carnforth]] is open to navigation.<ref name=BP_PLC>{{cite web |url=https://www.blogpreston.co.uk/2021/08/prestons-lost-canal-drunk-on-the-packet-boats/ |title=Preston's lost canal, drunk on the packet boats |publisher=Blog Preston |author=Geoffrey Whittaker |date=1 August 2020 |access-date=16 November 2021}}</ref>

At Preston the canal originally terminated at a large boat basin located in the city centre between Marsh Lane and the A59 Ring Road, on the western side of Corporation Street. An aqueduct carried the canal from its current terminus on the northern side of Aqueduct Street in at [[Ashton-on-Ribble]], past the former [[Maudlands railway station]], paralleling the eastern side of the railway to the basin, where railway tracks, long since removed, provided access originally to Victoria Quay and later to the new Preston Dock. Following the [[Second World War]], as many industries around Preston closed, this section of the canal became derelict and in the 1960s it was filled in and a new terminus with mooring facilities built at Ashton. The land through which the canal ran is now the campus of the University of Central Lancashire, with the Sir Tom Finney Sports Centre located over the former boat slip, and the site of the boat basin now a small retail mall with an [[Aldi]] supermarket.<ref name=BP_PLC/>

Originally the canal was isolated from the River Ribble, but this changed in 2002 with the opening of the [[Ribble Link]].