A YouTube travel duo have made a video exploring a derelict section of the Lancaster Canal which runs under Preston city centre.

‘Explore the UK’ posted the video last month which sees vloggers, Sue and Elliott, checking out the former city centre canal route.

The video explains how the canal was built to transport coal to Lancaster and beyond but after little success, it was left abandoned.

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After following the route and walking over Preston’s tram road, Elliott explains the history of Preston’s Old Tram Bridge at the River Ribble which has been closed to the public since 2019 due to dangers of collapse. 

There are talks of replacing the bridge after money from the Levelling Up Fund has been made available by the government, design ideas from the public were said to be put forward last month.

The pair then make their way through Avenham Park and to the Capitol Centre Retail Park where the tram road used to run through before heading further North.

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Next, onto the city centre, Elliott describes how the tram road would have “punched through” the former Debenhams on Fishergate.

It would have met the canal and terminated at Corporation Street Retail Park which was originally the basin. 

Elliott said: “It would have been covered with warehouses and particularly coal yards because that is one of the main reasons for Lancaster Canal being built.

“To think what it was then, and now it is an Aldi supermarket and a Poundstretcher, it’s mindblowing.”

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From the retail park, the canal used to run under UCLan’s campus to Lancaster.

Elliott added: “It would’ve been a real hive of activity as boats would’ve been loaded up with coal which was coming northwards and equally being emptied of lime which was coming southwards for trade.”

It is said that an old boat named ‘Kenneth’ was buried under the Corporation Street car park, after the last boats worked the area in the 1940’s the canal became derelict.

To end the video, the pair make their way down Shelley Road to the start of the Lancaster Canal, situated behind a row of terrace houses and home to some narrowboats.

Elliott and Sue, have just started the channel ‘Explore the UK’ but have racked up over 4,000 subscribers on their second channel, documenting their adventures living on a narrowboat themselves.

They plan to explore places, find out about people and learn about the diverse history of the UK while documenting it online.

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