The Leeds & Liverpool Canal

Stanley Dock Branch

It was always planned that the Leeds & Liverpool Canal should have a direct link to the docks and the River Mersey. The Stanley Dock branch of the canal was added in 1846 when the expansion of the railway disrupted the canals original route to Old Hall Street and the Princes Dock area. The four locks on this branch are large enough to allow the Liverpool flats access to the canal. It is from this terminus that the canal link will join canal to the South Docks. The locks were designed and supervised by Jesse Hartley, the stone work is typical of Hartley's docks. The original plan was to have the country's (and world's) first integrated dock, canal and railway depot. Instead two warehouses were built where the docks would have been. In 1900 the large tobacco warehouse was built on half of Stanley Dock. Liverpool's Collingwood Dock is reached via Stanley Dock.