The Thelwall Viaduct is a steel composite girder viaduct in Lymm, Warrington, England. It carries the M6 motorway across the Manchester Ship Canal and the River Mersey. It is between junctions 20 and 21 of the M6, the former being also known as junction 9 of the M56.
Main span of the two bridges over the Manchester Ship Canal, with the older bridge in the foreground
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
