Memorable Visits (Part 1)

RCHS North West Group Coach Tour Event: Thursday 27th June 2019

Shropshire Union Canal: a brief history (a progressive amalgamation of several separate canal companies, viz. the Canal, the , the Ellesmere & and the & Junction Canal)

In 1771 a prospectus was drawn up for a canal from the River Dee at Chester to join the Trent & Mersey Canal near , later changed to . The Act for the Chester Canal received Parliamentary Assent in March 1772. The canal ran from the Dee tidal basin via a five- staircase rise near to the City’s Northgate. By 1775 it had reached Beeston. Due to the problems with the T&M proprietors and a lack of capital the Chester Canal Company was forced to abandon its line to Middlewich and opted for an alternative line, 16 miles long, to which opened in 1779. Without an end-on connection with any other canal and no developing industrial hinterland the Chester Canal became a complete failure and by 1790 it was derelict.

Its fortunes revived in 1793, with the passing of the Act for the Ellesmere Canal, which authorized the building of a waterway to link the Rivers Severn, Dee and Mersey. The Chester Canal proprietors saw the advantage of a connection with this new canal and this was achieved in part in 1797 with the building of the from Netherpool (later named ) on the Mersey to a junction with the Chester Canal at Chester. It made a connection in 1805 with the Ellesmere Canal when the Whitchurch Branch was extended and opened to near Nantwich. As the Ellesmere was dependent on the Chester for access to the Mersey, the two companies eventually amalgamated in 1813 to form the Ellesmere & Chester Canal Company. The new company finally obtained powers to make the connection to the Trent & Mersey Canal at Middlewich and this was eventually opened in 1833.

With support from Thomas , the Act for the Birmingham & Liverpool Junction Canal (BLJC) received Royal Assent in 1826. The title of the canal shows that it was for long-distance rather than local traffic. This major waterway from () to Nantwich (junction with the Chester Canal) was eventually opened throughout in 1835 forming the country’s last trunk canal. It shortened the distance and reduced the lockage between Liverpool and Birmingham to 69 locks in 94 miles instead of 99 locks in 114 miles by way of the Trent and Mersey. The journey from Manchester to Birmingham was also reduced by 30 locks. It opened a year after Telford’s death and just two years before the Grand Junction Railway, affording a rail link from Liverpool and Manchester to Birmingham, was opened a few miles to the east. In 1845 the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Company and the Ellesmere and Chester Canal Companies merged under the title of the latter.

This marriage was short lived and in 1846, to counter the threat from the railways, three Acts were approved whereby the name was changed to the Shropshire Union Railway & Canal Company (SURCC) and powers obtained to convert most of the Company’s canal systems into railways. This was quickly identified by the London & North Western Railway as a threat to its own ambitions in the West . In a strategy aimed at buying out the competition and impeding its railway rivals, the LNWR made an offer in 1846 to lease in perpetuity, the SURCC’s and railways. The canal company’s directors were attracted by the offer and in particular the guarantee of profits from the LNWR. Agreement was reached and by an Act of 1847 the LNWR assumed overall control of the Shropshire Union’s affairs. The SURCC became known as the Shropshire Union (SU). The appendix map shows the SU network with its constituent companies and connections with other canals.

The Canal was originally the Llangollen Branch, running NW from (near Ellesmere) to Llangollen. The Branch, running SW from Frankton Junction, closed below Frankton in 1936, following a breach at Perry Aqueduct. In 1944 much of the Shropshire Union system was closed by the then owners, the London

1 Notes for use at the NW Group 2019 Memorable Canal Visits and are not to be used for any other purpose, reproduced or otherwise given to any third party. Midland and Scottish Railway (successors to the L&NWR) but the main line survived and also the line to Llangollen which was saved from closure by the need to use it as a water feeder not only for the canal but also to the Hurleston Reservoir from where it is piped for distribution for domestic and industrial use in the mid- area. The whole length from to Llangollen has been rebranded as the .

Tyrley Wharf

Tyrley is at the end of a pound seventeen miles long. The line of the canal was well-chosen, falling all the way from Autherley Junction (on the edge of Wolverhampton) despite crossing two water sheds: Trent–Severn and Severn– Weaver. The water supply originally proved inadequate — Knighton Reservoir leaked and was too small — but now there is no problem, the water coming from Wolverhampton Sewage Works

The wharf buildings were erected by the Twemlow family of Peatswood Hall shortly after the canal was opened. The canal company refused to allow the wharf to be built below the lock because this would have meant that too much water would have been drawn from the long pound. Within ten years of its construction, Thomas Twemlow complained that the was silting up, but the canal company was unsympathetic, saying that if he wanted it dredged, he would have to pay for it.

From 1911 the wharf was used for loading milk churns to be taken from the Peatswood Estate to Cadbury’s factory at Knighton. Other farms loaded churns into the boats there or in the lock. These canal boats carried 150 churns and when fully loaded drew just 18 inches.

From 1843 until about 1847 the BLJC experimented with steam haulage between Tyrley and Autherley Junction (and, towards the end of this period, on the Wirral Line) but the cost and the practical problems of assembling boats into trains meant that they reverted to horses. Steam haulage was tried again in the 1880s but powered boats were not to become common on this canal until the 1930s. The canal company had stables above Tyrley Locks on the side. (There is a well preserved stable block at Bunbury but, unfortunately, we cannot access the site by coach)

Tyrley Locks

The flight of five locks lowers the canal by 33 feet. The locks all have the same depth so as to conserve water and (in theory) make gates interchangeable. Late canals tended to have their locks grouped in flights; on earlier canals they tended to be more scattered.

The locks were built of stone cut from Cutting. If you look carefully, you can see evidence that the design of the top gates have been changed. Telford’s original design had two gates. In the 1840s, these were replaced by the current design, with only one gate. If you look on the far side, you can see that the stonework has a recess just long enough for the old smaller gate, with a curved end for the ‘heel post’ of the gate.

Lock 5 is a Historic Grade II listed building. The entry is as follows: “Lock. 1827-33 with C20 alterations. Telford design. Brick and stone Chamber with concrete coping on off side and stone coping on towpath side. Brick head walls with concrete coping. Brick tail walls with brick and concrete coping, and steps, on off side. Stone, with stone and concrete coping on towpath side. Single, wooden top gate with 1 mechanical gate paddle gearing and 2 mechanical ground paddle gearings. Concrete heel grip platform. Double, wooden bottom gates with 2 mechanical gate paddle gearings. Brick and concrete heel grip platforms.”

Whereas most of ' locks are painted in black & white, the locks on this canal are painted in grey & white. This has been so since at least 1920.

2 Notes for use at the NW Group 2019 Memorable Canal Visits and are not to be used for any other purpose, reproduced or otherwise given to any third party.

A Brindley SU Company Cottage, east of Tyrley lock 2 (Peter Brown) Tyrley Top Lock, Cottages and Wharf

The lock cottage is typical of Telford’s designs and is similar to the toll houses he designed for the Road some twenty years earlier. (One has been rebuilt in Blists Hill Open Air Museum.) This is the only lock cottage which has survived relatively unchanged. It is a Grade II listed building described by Historic England as: “Lock-keeper's cottage. Probably c.1830, with later alterations. Purplish-brown brick; slate roof with half-octagonal splays to front and rear, wide projecting eaves. Cruciform plan. Single storey; 1:3:1 bays (including 3 windows to half-octagonal projection to front); all 4-paned late C19 sashes with horns; prominent central axial ridge stack with brick capping. Entrance in left-hand side of half-octagonal projection to front.”

A lockless private canal nearly ¾ mile long had been built about 1791 from a marl pit just east of Tyrley Wharf, crossing the line of the later canal at about Lock 3 (the third one down) and finishing nearly ¼ mile north of lock 5, the aims being to transport marl and irrigate the grassland. In evening sunshine the line can just be made out curving across the field.

Between the second and third lock down, on the other side of the canal to the towpath, are a couple of boundary markers made of with the letters ‘SUC’. The mileposts were erected when the canal opened to a pattern used on the Trent & Mersey Canal.

Redundant second gate recess on opposite side of lock to single top gate

Apart from coal and other bulk supplies becoming cheaper, the coming of the canal had little effect on the economy of . No industries — not even the gas works — were located canalside, and the town did not expand towards the canal. The area of the town we pass through today to the east of the town centre is essentially of post- WWII construction.

(Notes for Tyrley adapted from: https://www.waterways.org.uk/shrewsbury/towpath_walk_tyrley_market_drayton)

3 Notes for use at the NW Group 2019 Memorable Canal Visits and are not to be used for any other purpose, reproduced or otherwise given to any third party. Locks

There is a flight of 15 locks at Audlem. These lower the canal 93ft in 1½ miles. Locks 3 – 11 are particularly close together over a distance of ¾ mile. Audlem Bridge (#78) which carries A525 over the canal is between lock 12 and lock 13. The photographs below are of Audlem wharf between the road bridge and lock 13.

Audlem Wharf

When the BLJC opened in March 1835, the company had three wharves – Norbury, Audlem and Newport. . For local trade on the main line, within three years of opening there were fourteen private wharfs, four of which had warehouses.

The three pictures opposite show the Audlem wharf area in chronological order: the date of the upper image is unknown, the centre image is late-1960s and the lower one (from Jim Shead’s collection) postdates the conversion of the canal company’s warehouse to the Shroppie Fly pub. The right hand, higher side of this building was also once two cottages for the company’s agent and his assistant. The crane outside the pub was originally a railway crane and has no connection with the canal.

Audlem Mill, now a thriving craft shop business, was originally Kingbur Mill, built in 1916 and powered by an oil engine. There was once a covered gangway leading from the mill to the canal wharfside, some traces of which remain if you look very carefully.

The old canal-side stable block at the bottom of the locks is still in good repair and is now surrounded by a garden. Once the block had a sign saying it was ‘only for the use of Shropshire Union animals’. During the working boat carrying days these stables were often full and boatmen would then have to take their animals to the Bridge Inn (the white building just visible in the top and bottom pictures) or the Lord Combermere Inn in the village to find stabling. The Bridge Inn had stabling for six horses in its back yard.

A small lock keeper’s or lengthman’s hut is situated at Lock 4. There is also a lock keeper’s cottage at the top of the flight by Lock 1. The cottage at lock 13 is unusual for the BLJC because it is a two-storey rather than the more common single storey cottage .

Audlem Wharf text adapted from an article that first appeared in the Nantwich Link magazines (including Village Link) in April 2015 . At Lock 3, the building immediately above the canal on Bagley Lane was once the local bakery. The final 4 lockNotes cottagefor use at the for NW the Group Audlem 2019 Memo lockrable flight Canal is Visitsat the and top are not to be used for any other purpose, reproduced or otherwise given to any third party. by Lock 1. The lock cottages at Audlem were built to Nantwich Basin

Nantwich basin was the original terminus of the Chester Canal — because of the levels of the land it would not have been practicable to continue it for a further ¾ mile to the town centre. The basin was an important and busy location with boats coming and going on the canal and horse drawn carts and wagons arriving and leaving by road.

The canal company had bought the land from Charles Bate for £240 but they could not afford to pay him. He therefore put a chain across the canal, demanding that he be paid a fee for timber and all items loaded or unloaded there. It was then agreed that he could take possession of the wharf.

A warehouse and a limekiln were erected here, and arrangements made for land transport to Wheelock on the Trent & Mersey, Market Drayton and Newport.

After the BLJC opened, the link with the Midlands meant that trade at the basin increased. A significant traffic was limestone from Trevor Rocks; this was unloaded here and stored until required by the ironmasters of East Shropshire.

In the 18th and early 19th Centuries Cheshire Cheese would have been conveyed by canal boat from Nantwich to London. Some early buildings survive at the wharf, though the cheese warehouse was demolished about 15 years ago. Beyond the site of the former warehouse is a dry dock which is still in frequent use.

Part of one of the warehouses was converted for use as a mission room in the 1870s. The curate who conducted the services established a clothing club for boat families; the Shropshire Union contributed 18 shillings a year.

In about 1970 British Waterways used the basin as a base for their hire fleet.

Nantwich Embankment

After passing under Nantwich Junction Bridge (below right) and by stopping and looking north it is possible to observe the difference in width between the original 1779 canal and the later 1835 narrow canal. When the Birmingham & Liverpool Junction Canal was being planned in 1826 it was the intention to make an end to end junction with the Chester Canal at Nantwich. However the local landowners at nearby refused to allow the BLJC to cross through their park land. This caused the line of the BLJC to be moved further east. As a result of this decision it was necessary to carry the canal on a half mile long curving embankment and also build a bridge over the road from Nantwich to Chester.

With appointed as the engineer the work on building the canal, including the section at Nantwich, started at Nantwich in 1827. In January 1831 both ends of the Nantwich embankment started slipping. The problem was remedied by 1832 and with the embankment consolidated the two canals eventually were joined together at Nantwich Junction which is just to the north of Nantwich Junction Bridge.

Nantwich Aqueduct from the south Nantwich Junction Bridge from the south

5 Notes for use at the NW Group 2019 Memorable Canal Visits and are not to be used for any other purpose, reproduced or otherwise given to any third party.

At the south end of the embankment the canal is carried over the Nantwich to Chester Road (A541) on a cast iron aqueduct, designed by Thomas Telford. The construction of the aqueduct is five cast iron troughs bolted together and supported on an arch of five cast iron ribs. It is similar to that further south over the A5 ().

Barbridge Junction

The Canal was built by the Ellesmere & Chester Canal Company to make a connection with the Trent & Mersey canal at Middlewich. It was built to narrow canal dimensions (71ft x 7ft), is 9¾ miles long has three locks. At its eastern end, the T&M, as was their practice, built the short with one lock in order to maintain control over access to their canal.

The junction of the Middlewich Branch and the main line (opened in 1833) is dominated by an aesthetic winged roving bridge (numbered as No. 1 on the Middlewich Branch), which provides access to the branch canal’s towpath. Barbridge became an important location for the trans-shipment of cargoes between boats: the Middlewich branch was a narrow canal and the Chester a broad canal. Warehouses and wharves were built to store and handle cargoes. The two main warehouses, built of brick, were situated one on each side of the canal. They were connected by a timber built roof that straddled the canal and provided cover for the loading and unloading of boats. The roof structure incorporated a wooden walkway that was used to provide access between the two warehouses. The structure was demolished in 1959. Still extant is the Georgian house, typical of the style built by Telford as residences alongside other canals he engineered, and what appears to be the small building formerly attached to the northern side of the transhipment shed. The house is fairly large and imposing as its purpose was to be the residence for the Canal Inspector.

Barbridge Junction with the Telford transhipment shed in Barbridge Junction looking south with the Middlewich Branch on 1957, 2 years before it was demolished (RCHS Collection) the left, March 2017. (© David W. Clegg)

Beeston Iron Lock

The westerly of the two locks at Beeston Brook is a unique cast iron canal lock built by Thomas Telford in 1828 and one of his last major works. It was built of iron to avoid acute water loss in an unstable substrate. It is constructed of flanged plates and anchored to piles of H-section, 12 feet deep. Additional piles support the hinge plates of the lower gates. Plate joints within the lock basin are protected by rubbing strakes. It is estimated that the iron lock weighs about 10% of the weight of a conventional lock of similar proportions (this statistic has not been checked).

The lock is a Grade II* listed building. The entry by Historic England reads: “Lock. 1828, by Telford. Chamber and wing walls lined with cast iron plates. Pair of wooden bottom gates with gate paddle gearing. Pair of steel top gates, with 1 gate paddle mounted on towpath side gate, and 2 ground paddles. All mechanical paddle gearings. Iron footbridge across lock tail. This lock is unique. Scheduled ancient monument, Ches.125.”

6 Notes for use at the NW Group 2019 Memorable Canal Visits and are not to be used for any other purpose, reproduced or otherwise given to any third party. Looking along the lock from the footbridge over the tail of the The iron top gates and lock sides. Despite being renewed as lock. The cast iron sides of the lock can be clearly seen. Craft are recently as 2002, both top and bottom gates are quite leaky. not allowed to use the lock side-by-side to avoid snagging and (© Alan Murray-Rust) possibly damaging the panels. (© Alan Murray-Rust) Beeston Lock was originally built as a staircase pair. It failed in 1780 and was repaired. However, in 1787 the walls of the lock gave way because the sand in which the lock was built had been washed out. A report of 1794 shows the extent of the damage: “the hollow posts betwixt the locks being torn to pieces by the sinking of the foundations … the breast of the lock given way, part of the side walls of both locks sunk, the counter arch of the upper lock shook to pieces and part carried away, the apron or floor of the lower lock burst and part of the planks torn off.”

By this time there had been a number of repairs necessary and, along with the cost attributable to disagreements with mine and land owners, meant that the repairs to staircase lock could not be afforded. For the next ten years the canal was operated in two sections with the inconvenience and expense of transhipment at Beeston Brook. There was a further breach in 1818 and in 1824 the two locks forming the staircase (actually having been built in quicksand) were reported as being in a “very precarious state and unsafe state”. Telford recommended a new line with two locks, the lower one to be made with cast-iron plates instead of stone or brick sides. This was completed in 1828.

Beeston Iron Lock, the site of which had caused so much trouble to the Chester Canal and its successor the Ellesmere & Chester Canal, collapsed again in 1882, closing the canal for a month, during which time all possible traffic had to be sent via Calverley interchange sidings, opened in 1860 (see 1898 OS map below). The tie rods on the towpath side had failed and the floor plates, both inside and outside, had given way. A new timber floor was put in and the sides strengthened and secured. George Jebb, Chief Engineer of the Shropshire Union Railways & Canal Company, commented that the work proved to be tedious and difficult because of the quicksand under the lock.

A51 (to Beeston & Chester)

Chester & Crewe Railway

Calverley Exchange Sidings

Ellesmere & Chester Canal

A51 (to Nantwich) 7 Notes for use at the NW Group 2019 Memorable Canal Visits and are not to be used for any other purpose, reproduced or otherwise given to any third party. Beeston Locks

Tyrley Wharf

8 Notes for use at the NW Group 2019 Memorable Canal Visits and are not to be used for any other purpose, reproduced or otherwise given to any third party.