Shropshire Routes to Roots

6. The Shrewsbury Canal

Coal

The main purpose of the Shrewsbury Canal was to supply coal from the east Shropshire coal field around Ironbridge to the county town, Shrewsbury. Many of the initial promoters were those involved in the Shropshire Canal.

From its junction with the Wombridge Canal, it descended 23 metres (75 feet) by an inclined plane at Trench, which is shown on the right. A further nine locks followed in the next two miles. All these locks were designed to take four tub boats, so were 25 metres (81 feet) long and only 2 metres (6 feet 7 inches) wide, and they had guillotine gates rather than conventional gates.

The inclined plane at Trench, near Telford Larger image, in a new window [39kb] [Shropshire Archive reference: PH/T/14]

In 1795, the Shrewsbury Canal bought the mile-long section of the Wombridge Canal between the top of the Trench incline and the junction with the Shropshire and Donnington Wood Canals.

The aqueduct that should never have been

Longdon-on-Tern aqueduct Larger image, in a new window [14kb] [Secret Shropshire]

The main engineering work on the canal was the aqueduct at Longdon-on-Tern, which is shown here. This was the first large-scale iron aqueduct in the world. However, it was not intended this way. Josiah Clowes, the engineer for the canal, had started to build a conventional masonry aqueduct but in February 1795 his structure was washed away in a flood. Soon after, Clowes died, and Thomas Telford was appointed to take over the engineering. Telford worked together with Thomas Eyton, chairman of William Reynolds and Co., and the first large iron aqueduct was designed and built in very quick time.

Tunnels

Tunnels caused problems for boats. The lack of towpaths meant that in many tunnels the boat crews would have to 'leg' their way through a tunnel. They lay on their backs and pressed their feet on the ceiling to force their way through it. Berwick Tunnel, 887 metres (970 yards) long, was the first major canal tunnel in Britain to have a towpath built through it.

However, this did not solve the other major problem with long tunnels, particularly those which, like the Berwick Tunnel, were not straight. Conflicts could occur when two boats came at it from opposite directions. To overcome this, a bye-law was introduced which stated that whoever reached the centre first should continue, whilst the 'loser' would have to turn back. At busy periods, a boat might be forced to turn around two or three times.

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