Bygone Burnley: Finsley Gate Wharf and the Burnley Embankment, with historian Roger Frost MBE

Local historian Roger Frost MBE guides us along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal to Finsley Gate Wharf, now preserved as an entertainment heritage venue, but which in the 19th Century was a hive of activity as goods flowed in and out of industrial Burnley via the canal.

We then take a walk further up the canal to one of the “Wonders of the Waterways” – the Burnley Embankment, known locally as the “Straight Mile”.

Finsley Wharf, which dates from the end of the 18th Century, was built by the Leeds Liverpool Canal Company and featured workshops, a house, blacksmith’s shop and smithy, warehouse and a brick-building centre.

Roger also reveals that the area around Finsley Gate was known at the time as “Turnbridge” due to the particular characteristics of the canal-level bridge and turned on an axis. The bridge, rebuilt in the mid 1880s which still sits above the canal, allowed buses and larger vehicles to use it.

Our video and this article also features some evocative original photographs of the two subjects.

The first shows Finsley Gate Wharf as it was before 1885. In that year the “turnbridge”, in the centre of the image, was replaced by the present bridge over the canal.

Some of the buildings at the wharf, including the warehouse, can be seen in the picture. Later the warehouse became part of the canal company’s workshops and boat maintenance yard.

Our other image shows Burnley Embankment as it was in the 1920s.