The 'Horse Hospital'

If you look at a Victorian map of Lymm then 2/3 of the way along the towpath between Lymm Bridge and Dog Bridge stood a solitary building on the side of the canal. The clue to its purpose comes from the Tithe Map of the 1830s which shows that the large field directly behind it was owned by Francis Egerton ( i.e. The Duke of Bridgewater who had the canal built).

The building was stabling for horses, possibly the ones used to bring the packets boat between Stockton Heath and Manchester. Lymm and Altrincham were the stops along the way where the horses could be changed. In 1911 William Bent and his wife and three grown-up children were living there in a 6 room dwelling with the the address "Navigation Stables, Canalbank".  William's older son Samuel was working at a Ship Canal warehouse but in later years the stables would become known locally as Sammy Bent's Horse Hospital. Watch for the break in the hedge and a short length of barbed wire. That's the site where you will find some of the original stonework.