The proliferation of mines resulted from its accessibility at the start of the Industrial Revolution and the climate which was ideal for cotton mills. Coal fed the boilers of the cotton mill towns of Ashton-under-Lyne, Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley, Bury, Darwen, Oldham and Rochdale as well as the Rossendale Valley. The first industrial revolution coal mines supplied coal locally and to Liverpool, along the River Mersey via the Sankey Canal. On the Manchester Coalfield, the early collieries were those of the Duke of Bridgewater in Worsley, where the Bridgewater Canal was built to transport coal from his mines to Manchester.