Does anyone know more about the metal valve that used to exist right next to the canal bridge on Lily Lane? I always thought it looked like the valve ontop of a pressure cooker and can recall it hissing occasionally as I walked past. A few year back now it was replaced by a little brick box with a grid on top that you can see here on StreetView. Just wondered if anyone knew any specifics on it? Was it venting mine works? Was it coal gas/damp gas coming out? Was it to do with Bamfurlong Colliery? And does it no longer need venting now?

It might be a feeder for the canal.

I suppose it could be possible it was related to the canal but with it being around 20ft above the canal level I hadn't considered it! No sign of any sluice or owt by the canal there. I'd always assumed it had something to do with local mine workings.

It could be something to do with the Rivington Aqueduct (Liverpool Water Corporation) which flows through Platt Bridge, roughly following (and under) Lilly Lane from the traffic lights to a few yards north of the canal bridge.

Correct nightchap. That's what it is, a vent for the Rivington Aqueduct.

It actually goes under the canal bridge and then it goes across the boggy ground at the side of Lily Lane in between the canal and railway bridges, in the form of a raised up metal pipe, which I used to walk across as a yung un in the 1960's

Around Bamfurlong back then, there was all-sorts of derelict industrial crap, left over from the Bamfurlong and Mains Collieries, over the years they have done a good job with the landscaping on those sites

Tommy, do you remember the name of the lad that drowned in one of the swimming places on the Bamfurlong side of the canal? This would be in the '60's.

Do you hear the squeal at that point, when the pig runs through the aquaduct?

Uncle Joe

I remember it happening and the surname 'cook' rings a bell, but I am not sure.

Thanks for that Tommy. I remember it happening as well, but not his name.

There was a family called Cook living in the terraced houses near Kintbury Street on the same side as the school. If they had a son or not I have no idea.

Yes that is 'cooks' I was thinking of and one of the girls was called Janet, they lived like you say in the terraced houses opposite the bungalows and where the post office was located back then....

Was it Janet or April? I seem to remember the latter, and she mated at one time with someone called Janet. A red haired girl. The last time I saw her she was living in Arthur Smalleys row.


Tommy, I'm guessing we must know each other.

I think she did have a sister, where abouts in Bamfurlong did you live.

In Bryngates, next door to Harry Boulton.

I don't think I know you, we moved when I was 11 we lived in one of the bungalows opposite the school..

The one the Crinnigans bought?

No,, but the people we sold it too were not there that long and as I understand it, the people who bought it from them, which would have been circa 1972 are still there today, but I don't know their name.