Aqueduct at Aqueduct

Aqueduct at Aqueduct

March 2012

I always thought is was rather crass of a new band to issue their first single with the same title and the band name - not that I cant think of an example off the top of my head...

Well here we find an aqueduct in a place called Aqueduct, although it has to be said that the structure came first and later gave its rather imaginative name to the hamlet around it. Aqueduct is where the Horsehay Arm of the Shropshire Canal crossed the old Holyhead Road to the south of what is today known as Telford.

The canal was dewatered way back in 1850, giving way to a network of railways which supported the growth of the Coalbrookdale Coalfield and the associated iron industry.

Its an unremarkable structure but one which has stood the test of time and formed an essential link in a unique network of tub boat canals.

Tame Aqueduct Fazeley Junction

Tame Aqueduct - Tamworth

January 2012

This is an image of Shadow crossing the Tame Aqueduct - borrowed from Halfie's blogsite.

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.