Francis Egerton, third Duke of Bridgewater, inherited Worsley in the mid-18th century along with extensive coal seams beneath it. The seams slanted downward and flooded persistently. Getting the coal out was hard; getting it to market in Salford and Manchester was harder still, because road transport was both inefficient and expensive. The Duke's solution, worked out with his estate manager John Gilbert and the engineer James Brindley, was radical. Instead of carting coal in wagons, he would float it out in boats - on a purpose-built canal running all the way from Worsley to Salford. The canal would even extend underground, into the mines themselves at Worsley Delph, so loaded boats could be poled directly out of the workings. He obtained the necessary Act of Parliament. Construction began.

The Bridgewater Canal opened in 1761. A single horse could pull a thirty-ton barge - more than ten times what the same horse could move on roads. The stone aqueduct at Barton-upon-Irwell carried the canal over the River Irwell, considered at the time a major engineering achievement. One contemporary writer marvelled that it would be the most extraordinary thing in the kingdom, if not in Europe. The price of coal in Manchester fell by about half. The Duke's underground canal eventually extended for nearly fifty miles of tunnels through the mines. Britain's canal age had begun, and it had begun at Worsley Delph. Worsley Green - now a quiet residential square - became a thriving industrial complex of warehouses, workshops and a tall chimney.

The Bridgewater estate also produced houses. Worsley Old Hall, parts of which date back over nine hundred years, was the original manor seat - now a Grade II listed pub and restaurant in the Brunning and Price chain. Worsley New Hall, a much grander pile designed by Edward Blore, was built in 1846 for Francis Egerton the First Earl of Ellesmere. Queen Victoria visited in 1851 and 1857. Edward VII and Queen Alexandra came in 1869 and again in 1909. The hall served as a hospital in the First World War and housed Dunkirk evacuees, American soldiers preparing for D-Day, and the Lancashire Fusiliers in the Second. It was badly damaged by fire in 1943 and demolished in 1949. In 2021, the Royal Horticultural Society opened RHS Garden Bridgewater on its former grounds.

Today Worsley is a commuter village of about ten thousand people, the M60 and M62 motorways cutting through its margins, with two large hotels and a quiet civic identity. The Bridgewater Clock in the tower of St Mark's Church strikes thirteen times at one in the afternoon - a tradition begun so workmen at the Bridgewater workshops would not miss the end of their dinner break. Parts of the village are on the UK tentative list as a candidate World Heritage Site, recognising Worsley Delph as the place where the modern canal age started. Ryan Giggs once bought a Victorian mansion on the outskirts and demolished it. David Beckham owned property here. The accordionist James Fearnley of the Pogues grew up here. So did Tim Burgess of the Charlatans. The water at the Delph is still orange.