Memorable Canal Visits Shropshire Union Canal (Part 1)
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Memorable Canal Visits Shropshire Union Canal (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 Chester Canal, the Ellesmere Canal, the Ellesmere &Chester Canal and the Birmingham & Liverpool Junction Canal) In 1771 a prospectus was drawn up for a barge canal from the River Dee at Chester to join the Trent & Mersey Canal near Runcorn, later changed to Middlewich. The Act for the Chester Canal received Parliamentary Assent in March 1772. The canal ran from the Dee tidal basin via a five-lock 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 Nantwich 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 Wirral line from Netherpool (later named Ellesmere Port) 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 Hurleston 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 Telford, 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 Wolverhampton (Autherley Junction) 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 Midlands. 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 canals 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 Llangollen Canal was originally the Llangollen Branch, running NW from Frankton Junction (near Ellesmere) to Llangollen. The Llanymynech 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-Cheshire area. The whole length from Hurleston Junction to Llangollen has been rebranded as the Llangollen Canal. 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 Belvide Reservoir 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 winding hole 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 towpath 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 Woodseaves 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 England 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 British Waterways' 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 Holyhead 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.