Salford Quays lift bridge
The Salford Quays lift bridge, also known as the Salford Quays Millennium footbridge or the Lowry bridge, is a 91.2-metre (299 ft) long vertical lift bridge spanning the Manchester Ship Canal between Salford and Trafford in Greater Manchester, England. The pedestrian bridge, which was completed in 2000, is near the terminus of the ship canal at the old Manchester Docks. It is sited beside The Lowry theatre and gallery and links Salford Quays and MediaCityUK to Trafford Wharf and the Imperial War Museum North. It has a lift of 18 metres (59 ft), allowing large watercraft to pass beneath.
The bridge and Salford Quays
The bridge fully raised to allow a ship passage, 2012
On the deck of the bridge
The Manchester Ship Canal is a 36 mi-long (58 km) inland waterway in the North West of England linking Manchester to the Irish Sea. Starting at the Mersey Estuary at Eastham, near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, it generally follows the original routes of the rivers Mersey and Irwell through the historic counties of Cheshire and Lancashire. Several sets of locks lift vessels about 60 ft (18 m) to the canal's terminus in Manchester. Landmarks along its route include the Barton Swing Aqueduct, the world's only swing aqueduct, and Trafford Park, the world's first planned industrial estate and still the largest in Europe.
Stolt Kittiwake heading toward the Mersey Estuary, 2005
A cartoon published in the satirical magazine Punch in 1882, ridiculing the idea that Manchester could become a major seaport
Cheque dated 3 August 1887, in the amount of £1,710,000, for the purchase of the Bridgewater Navigation Company. At the time it was the largest cheque ever presented.
The Excavation of the Manchester Ship Canal: Eastham Cutting with Mount Manisty in the Distance (1891), by Benjamin Williams Leader, brother of the canal's engineer Edward Leader Williams