When is a tunnel not a tunne?

When it is "Armitage Tunnel".  Well, it was a tunnel at one time.  Then in the 1970s subsidence started to lower the roof and consequently had an effect on the major road passing over the top.  There would be two possible solutions!  Take the roof off and build a new bridge or fill in the canal and use the infill to support the road above.  This decision would be being taken at around the time the Lancaster Canal was being chopped into sections by the M6 north of Carnforth.  Thankfully they chose to take the roof off and build a bridge over the canal.

The tunnel was only wide enough for a single narrowboat, so before entering you need to check nobody is entering at the other end (there is a slight bend that prevents seeing through).  When we arrived one boat was waiting and the crew had gone through the tunnel to prevent other boats from entering.  By the time we were ready to enter there were three of us in the convoy.

The blip is the lead boat just going out from under the bridge.  It is just possible to see how rough the sandstone is where the tunnel had been cut through the rock.

One or two readers may remember seeing the name "Armitage Shanks" on items of sanitary equipment.  I am not saying this is the home of those items but just out of the tunnel is a factory that has its yard stacked high with toilets.