Lledan Brook Aqueduct

Lledan Brook Aqueduct

Montgomery Canal

November 2010

This is my first Montgomery Canal Aqueduct, and so a new label!

I can't claim to have bagged this one myself but fortunately I have friends out there that know of my odd interest in Aqueducts, and will take photos for my benefit. Credit for these one goes to Halfe who has published a full post of the structure on his blog.

This is the second aqueduct on the site, the first being a masonry affair later replaced with an iron trough dressed up to look like masonry. The sign board explains all:

Weaver Aqueduct

Weaver Aqueduct

Shropshire Union

November 2010

The Shropshire Union crosses the River Weaver just  below the Audlem locks.

Even this high up the Weaver is still a substantial watercourse, so substantial that during the War plans were laid to extend the Weaver Navigation to Audlem and then upgrade the Shropshire Union to broad guage to allow larger craft to pass from Manchester to Birmingham.

The plan never came to pass and instead the Weaver continues to flow beneath the single arch of the Shroppie.

Snapes Aqueduct

Snapes Aqueduct
Trent and Mersey
November 2010

This one sits mid way own Wheelock Hill (aka Heartbreak Hill).

Unglamorous but functional.

Hazelhurst River Aqueduct

Hazelhurst River Aqueduct
Caldon Canal
November 2010

There are actually three aqueducts at Hazelhurst Junction, the main canal over canal structure everyone knows and then there is the river aqueduct in the adjacent field.

The third aqueduct crosses the abandoned railway line, but I couldnt find a way down to the trackbed - so it will have to wait for another visit.

Hazelhurst Aqueduct

Hazelhurst Canal Aqueduct
Caldon Canal
November 2010

This perhaps one of the finest aqueducts on the system. Maybe not from an architectural perspective but it does belong to a very elite club of aqueducts which carry a canal over a canal.

The whole set up of the Caldon and its Leek Arm is a bit odd with seveal realignments as the feeder was added and then made navigable. The locks you see today are the third version.

Froghall Aqueduct

Froghall Aqueduct
Caldon Canal
November 2010

This rarely visited aqueduct carries the far end of the Caldon over a tributory of the Churnet at Froghall Wharf, beyond the impossibly low tunnel.

Special only due to its inacessibility.

Leek Aqueduct

Leek Aqueduct
Caldon Canal
November 2010


Update October 2011


A further visit provided an opportunity for a further view:

The Caldon is blessed with a number of aqueducts but perhaps the humblest is the structure at the far end of the Leek Arm. This carried the canal over a river and on for quarter of a mile to a teminus now occupied by a scrayard.

The watercourse is no more and the channel has been infilled, leaving the aqueduct as an overengineered footbridge to the winding hole where the feeder from the Rudyard reservoir runs in.