Hazlehurst Railway Aqueduct

Hazlehurst Railway Aqueduct
Near Leek
October 2011

I saw this aqueduct when I visited the Caldon last year and whilst I managed to get a photo of the canal and river aqueducts, the aqueduct over the abandoned railway tracks seemed inaccessible. This time the offside moorings were vacant and I saw a small path down the embankment to the recently cleared track.

Another for my collection.

Went Aqueduct

Went Aqueduct
New Junction Canal


The New Junction Canal has aqueducts at both ends - not bad for a waterway which is barely five miles long.

Went Aqueduct

In my last post I looked at the Don Aqueduct but this time I turn my attention a few miles north to the Went Aqueduct, its no less substantial alter ego. True, it dosn't have those impressive guillotine gates but as a structure it is very similar. The same oversize steel channel with water so deep the base is obliged to lie in the water below.

Don Aqueduct

Don Aqueduct
New Junction Canal


Of all the aqueducts on the UK's Inland Waterways network, this is probably the big daddy of them all.


I knew very little of the New Junction Canal till we turned onto it from the Stainforth and Keadby and suddenly, there it was. A huge great lump of an aqueduct carrying the commercial sized NJC over the River Don. The canal it carries is so large and so deep that the immense cassion goes pretty much down to the river's surface, leaving the water to flow under it like a sump.

River Don Aqueduct, South Yorkshire

But its not only its size which is impressive. Each end is guarded with an immense guillotine gate which ads enormously to its grandeur as you approach it from the water. 

Don Aqueduct with its belly hanging into the waters below

The aqueduct also serves as an overspill, with surplus water cascading over its sides into the Don below. The sides of the aqueduct bear testimony to the weights involved, sagging down bewteen the supports.

Don Aqueduct with its undulating edge.

Tame Aqueduct

Tame Aqueduct
Huddersfield Narrow Canal


Just to the west of Stalybridge you come to the last (or first depending on your line of travel) aqueduct on the Huddersfield Narrrow.


Its a precarious iron trough carrying the navigation channel over the River Tame but unusually it has a parallel stone bridge to carry the towpath.

Tame Aqueduct, Stalybridge

Royal George Aqueduct

Royal George Aqueduct
Huddersfield Narrow Canal


Lying just to the west of Uppermill is the Royal George Aqueduct - one which nearly got away.

Royal George Aqueduct

The rain was slipping down but eased off just enough to let me slide down the bank and grab a single photo before the heavens opened again and I had to hastily tuck my camera inside my waterproofs.

Old Sag Aqueduct

Old Sag Aqueduct Dobcross
Huddersfield Narrow Canal

Just to the east of the Dobcross Transhipment Warehouse lies Old Sag Aqueduct which carries the canal over Diggle Brook.

Right from the start this aqueduct suffered and the profile of its arch distorted under the weight of water it carried. Like a weebil, it wobbled but didnt fall down, bending but stabilising itself. When the canal was reopened it was repaired using a new steel liner, but the peculiar sag was left in place. 

Old Sag Aqueduct, Dobcross

Colne Aqueduct

Colne Aqueduct
Huddersfield Narrow Canal

Having crossed to the southern side of the River Colne just north of Huddersfield, the canal now switches back to the north side, just above a pretty weir which serves as a swimming hole for the locals.

 Colne Aqueduct

River Colne

Paddock Foot Aqueduct

Paddock Foot Aqueduct

Huddersfield Narrow Canal
Update August 2011
2011 saw a return visit to the HNC, this time tackling it from the eastern end. Vegetation growth prevented me getting a better shot of the north side of Paddock Foot, but I did get an image of the south face, complete with a water cascade which is a result of a very leaky adjacent lock chamber.

Paddock Foot Aqueduct Huddersfield

Carries the Hudersfield Narrow Canal over the River Colne and into a lock of the same name, overlooked by a stunning railway viadict on the outskirts of Huddersfield.
Built around 1811 and closed to navigation in 1944, when the canal was abandoned. Reopened in 2001as part of the HNC restoration project.
Is located at the end of an impossibly filthy and shallow pound. Good luck to all who sail along it (the rest of the canal is fab!).

The Captain's own collection

Stanley Ferry Aqueducts

Stanley Ferry Aqueducts

Aire and Calder Navigation

Update August 2011
We finally made it to the Yorkshire navigations and crossed the new aqueduct en route to Huddersfield. Of Course, we just had to stop whilst I grabbed some photos of my own.

The old Stanley Ferry Aqueduct

and the new one

Stanley Ferry moorings

Its difficult to reach these far flung aqueducts from a Midlands base, so it is always a pleasure when a fellow blogger manages to get a really good photo, and then kindly allows me to add it to my collection.


I have nb Gypsy Rover to thank for this excellent view of the original Stanley Ferry Aqueduct, a cast iron marvel built in 1839 to cross the River Calder. Technically it is a version of a compression arch suspended deck bridge, which is built on the same lines as the Sydney Harbour Bridge - but much more exciting because it carries 940 tons of water rather than boring old cars.

Whilst is may be nowhere as big as it's antipodean relative, it is none the less a world record holder in that it is the longest cast iron structure of its kind, measuring in at 165 ft long, 28ft wide and 8ft 6in deep, to accommodate the serious commercial traffic which used to operate in the area.

The structure is built around two huge cast iron arches from which the trough is suspended using 35 2 1/4in cast iron hangers, cast at the Milton Ironworks and designed by George Leather.

This site has something of a bonus in the form of a second pre stressed concrete aqueduct, built in 1981 to carry traffic whilst the original was being renovated. This second aqueduct may be a poor cousin in the aesthetics stakes, but it is unusual to see two operating aqueducts running side by side.

Edstone Aqueduct

Edstone Aqueduct

Stratford Canal

1 June 2009

Update May 2011
During a recent trip along the Stratford Canal I picked up these extra images of this impressive aqueduct:

Edstone, sometimes referred to as the Bearley Aqueduct after the nearby village, is to be found on the Stratford Canal and holds the record as being the longest aqueduct in England.

The aqueduct was built in the early 1800's and spans a road and the Alcester Railway (now the Great Western Railway) via a 250 yard cast iron trough sitting atop 13 brick piers, which vary in height from eight to eleven metres. The channel itself is similar to that used at Longden upon Tern, with the towpath forming part of the baseplate.

www.warwickshirerailways.com

A later picture of this water point reveals a heater at the bottom, used to prevent it freezing up in winter.

This structure is full of historical interest, and at one time was owned by the Great Western Railway, who fitted a pipe onto it an used it to refill the tanks of passing steam trains.

It also serves as a backdrop for one of the few photos of the infamous canoeist who purchased a solitary license in March 1953 and made a passage along the length of the canal over a series of chilly weekends, a purchase which saved the canal from abandonment. The rest is, as they say, history.

www.stratfordcanalsociety.org.uk

The trough was built without expansion joints, an omission which caused two cast iron plates to break apart and, over a period of 150 years to cause the end buttresses to start to move away from the embankments. The National Trust did a quick and dirty fix in the 1960's, welding a steel plate over the gap and building a concrete buttress to prop up each end. Sadly, these fixes ultimately did more harm than good, with impermeable layers preventing the escape of moisture and allowing the frost to inflict further structural damage.

A proper expansion joint was added in 1992 and then in 2003, some major remedial work was undertaken by Galliford Try. This involved removing the waterproof Gunnite from the buttresses, replacing the engineering bricks inserted into the piers and finally stripping all the lead paint off the cast iron trough before applying a new coat of paint. This £600,000 project was completed under a huge movable tent, without interrupting boat movements and was jointly funded by BW and the Hertitage Lottery Fund on a 7:5 split. Hopefully this investment will see the aqueduct carrying narrowboats in another 200 years time.

Selly Oak Aqueduct

Selly Oak Aqueduct
Worcester and Birmingham
February 2010

Update July 2011
Things have moved on with this aqueduct, which was opened for business about six months ago. During a trip to the new Droitwich Canal I paused and scrambled down the bank to grab the following shots:

 Selly Oak Aqueuct - towpath view

 Selly Oak Aqueduct in profile

And as a bonus this little river aqueduct can be found alongside the new one!

Birmingham is about to get a brand new aqueduct at Selly Oak.

This structure will carry the Worcester and Birmingham Canal over a new by pass at Selly Oak and will involve all sorts of temporary diversions whilst it is being built.

For the time being we can see where it will go from this photo taken by Waterway Routes:

New Selly Oak Aqueduct

Yarningale Aqueduct

Yarningale Aqueduct
Stratford Canal
3 June 2009

Update May 2011
Another trip and another set of photos:

Yarningale is part of a trio of aqueducts on the South Stratford Canal. Whereas Edstone is the longest in England this diminutive structure must rank as one of the shortest - a runty 42 feet, so short that even Wand'ring Bark can't be contained within its cast iron trough.

Yarningale Aqueduct - Captain Ahab's own collection

This is the second single span aqueduct to be built on the site, crossing a small stream near Preston Bagot. The first was a wooden affair, built in 1812 and washed away by a flood in 1834, caused by a surge from the Grand Union. It's replacement, the aqueduct we see today, was erected in an astonishing 27 days in 1834, having been cast at the Horsley Ironworks, whose output graces much of the BCN.

The aqueduct comes as something of a surprise, with its 9 foot wide channel leading directly into the top of Bucket Lock (number 34) and appears for all the world to be an extended narrows. Boaters therefore find themselves coming to a stop just before the top gates and unexpectedly looking down at a stream passing through a densely wooded valley.

Like its counterpart at Wootton Wawen, the cast iron trough was made without an expansion joint and this resulted in the inevitable split, this time over one of the abutments. Yarningale aqueduct formed part of the "three aqueducts" project in 2003, when major repairs were undertaken to the brick buttresses and the trough, where years of frost damage and corrosion was corrected and the structure rendered safe for many years to come.

I havnt forgotten this blog!

Dormant but not forgotten

March 2011

I take a perverse pride in the fact that I maintain two blog sites, one which is very popular (Captain Ahab's Watery Tales) and then there is this one - a backwater which attracts few visitors.

It is a site for real boating anoraks, the sort who were we into trains, would be found on the end of windswept platforms collecting loco numbers.

It is a labour of love, collecting aqueduct photos whenever I chance upon them. I did give it a kick start by using images available on the web, but I am now content to bide my time and post views of then as I come across them, or when fellow boaters send me an image.

This will never be a finished work because there are always more to find. The thing is that I only find them when I am cruising and that means the summer months.