Greater Manchester, England

Edgeley put-in (Stockport)

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Launch — A riverside portage point at the foot of the Brinksway cliff. OpenStreetMap tagged this node as a slipway from 2014 until an August 2026 edit replaced that tag with a general canoe access-point tag, so the current physical form is not confirmed.

Parking — Small unmarked surface car parks sit within about 60 to 120 metres of the point, with no access restriction recorded in OpenStreetMap; Stockport's managed Merseyway and Redrock car parks, run via RingGo, are about a mile east.

Access — Reached along a riverside path tagged in OpenStreetMap as a canoe portage route, next to a lit, surfaced route for walkers, cyclists and horse riders that forms part of the Mersey Valley Way. No gates, barriers or opening hours are recorded for this stretch.

Regulations — No waterways licence is required to paddle the River Mersey. This stretch is not a managed navigation; the Environment Agency is the environmental authority here and operates the Brinksway level gauge, but no byelaws, speed limits or no-wash zones specific to this point are published.

This access point on the River Mersey sits at Brinksway on the west side of Stockport, where the young river runs at the foot of a sandstone cliff a short way below its source. It lies on the Stockport-to-Carrington stretch that a voluntary access agreement opened to canoeists, now run as the free Mersey Paddle Trail.

The upper Mersey at Brinksway

The Mersey is formed about a mile upstream of this point, at the confluence of the Rivers Goyt and Tame in central Stockport.

Cut into the sandstone cliff that rises above the water here are the Brinksway Caves (also known as Maggie's Caves), artificial caves in the naturally eroding rock on the Cheadle side of the river, dating back to at least 1670. Sections were re-excavated shortly before the Second World War to build air raid shelters, the first of which opened on 28 October 1939.

Weir, gauge and crossings

The riverside path here is tagged in OpenStreetMap as a canoe portage route, carrying paddlers around Brinksway Weir a short way upstream. A nearby Environment Agency level gauge, station 5021, records a normal range of 0.40 to 1.80 metres for the reach, with the highest level on record here 5.03 metres, set on 1 January 2025.

Two crossings stand nearby: Brinksway Bridge, a single-span sandstone arch believed to have been built by mill owner Joseph Heaward and linked to the historic Howards Mill and Brinksway Mill on the two banks, widened in 1847 with two flood arches; and the Grade II* Stockport Viaduct a little further upstream, built in 1840.

Nearby

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Brew Crew Room

A coffee shop on Castle Street, Edgeley; the Food Standards Agency classifies the premises as Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen. OpenStreetMap records a cafe at this address under a different trading name (The Bluebird Cafe, last surveyed June 2026); coordinates are taken from that OSM node.

Website

Conditions to check

Weir

Brinksway Weir crosses the river about 45 to 50 metres upstream of this point.

Source

Other launches nearby

1 launch within 223m

223m east

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Location data

OpenStreetMap

View this point on OpenStreetMap