Ribble Navigation
1887 G. Henry Roberts C. E. wrote to The Engineer saying that the 1853 project to improve navigation had, in fact, blocked up the channel from Lytham to the sea and that the works underway at the time of writing would take many years to achieve the stated goals[1].
Later he pointed out that:[2]
"Up to 1837, only very small craft could come to Preston. Vessels arrived at Lytham and loaded their cargoes into shallow-draughted boats, which conveyed the cargoes up to Preston. After 1837, in accordance with the report of .... Messrs. Robert Stevenson and Sons, of Edinburgh, the river Ribble was straightened, and the rock near Preston in the channel blasted out. These vessels, which formerly got to Lytham, were then able to come on to Preston. The draught of these vessels was that of ordinary coasters, l0ft., 11ft., and up to 13ft. The channel is able to carry up to-day no deeper draughted vessels than it was in 1853, after the improvements carried out as ordered in Messrs. Stevenson and Sons' report ; and if Preston people had done as they were told in that report , these docks would never have been made, because they were then told if they wanted deeper draughted vessels to come to Preston it must be by a canal.
"When Preston got its Act of Parliament in 1883, it was stated before Committee of the House that there was a channel from the bar to Lytham, eight miles out of the seventeen to Preston Docks, 30ft. deep at dead low water spring tides " wide enough and deep enough for ocean vessels to pass up and down ." Where that channel is I do not know. All I know is that it cannot be found on the Admiralty chart, and when I have been coming up to Preston from the bar in a yacht drawing 3ft. of water, I have had two hours to wait for the tide to come, because I was aground; and that is not the worst of it. The difficulty is to find the channel, such as it is. It is crooked, and never in the same place long together, and when you get on the sandbanks, if it is not a high spring tide, you may be kept there for days, because on the banks the neap tides do not even cover some of them. And herein comes the most awful thing of all, they have gone and put the Preston Docks some 15ft. below these very banks, and the channel of the river Ribble up to Preston Docks is at the dock entrance, some 15ft. above the dock."
1889 The report of the Commissioners was published. It said that any works in the direction of improvement must consist of a combination of dredging in hard ground and training walls through sand. The Commissioners are not prepared to indicate what would be the best course for a river and channel in the lower parts of the estuary. If the recommendations of the Commissioners are carried out in two years' time, there will be an available depth from Preston to the sea of 21ft., and this would enable a vessel drawing 17ft., if she left Preston an hour before high water, to reach Lytham with a minimum of 2ft of water under her keel.[3]