When did bridge numbering start on canals?

[Joseph]

Happy New Year, everyone!!

 

Somewhat secondhand, a query has been relayed to me to which I don't have any ready answer. (Or indeed, too many clues, frankly!!).?

 

Here it is:

 

When did the numbering of bridges begin on England/Wales' canals [I don't think they ever were on canals in Scotland or Ireland, or rivers?]? My feeling is that this must have started as a general practice after nationalisation. Certainly, the cruising booklets, for pleasure boaters, begun by BTW in the 1950s used bridge numbering. I am only speculating (often a very dangerous thing!) but I think that the Shropshire Union company may have been numbering bridges earlier than that - there are "missing" bridges in general sequences that had been removed before nationalisation, or so I think.

 

There would be a logic to numbering bridges when engineers and others had a lot more bridges to consider than in the smaller pre-nationalisation units. But this is a speculation.

 

So far, my views are only the product of near-idle speculation, but I wonder if anyone knows much more.

 

I would be very interested if anyone has any concrete evidence that can confound my speculation.

 

Long may this forum continue.

 

Happy New Year

 

Joseph   

 

[David Mack]

Staffs and Works had cast iron name and number plates that predate nationalisation. 

Somewhere I have a photo of a Trent and Mersey bridge which has one number on a BW oval plate and another carved into a block of stone in the brick parapet, leading me to think that the bridges were renumbered at some point.

On most canals railway bridges aren't numbered (or have been given letter suffix numbers). Does that mean that numbering was originally done before the railways were built?

[Athy]

2 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

On most canals railway bridges aren't numbered (or have been given letter suffix numbers). Does that mean that numbering was originally done before the railways were built?

Very good point.

I too suspect that numbering happened long before nationalisation, because there are gaps in the bridge number series on some canals - certainly on the Oxford - where bridges have been removed. Sometimes the only trace of them is a narrowing of the cut (e.g. just below Cropredy lock), suggesting that they were dismantled long, long ago.

[Captain Pegg]

I’d be surprised if canal companies didn’t identify individual bridges from the outset. The example of railway bridges above is a good pointer to this fact but also consider the north Oxford Canal which has many missing bridge numbers following it’s straightening. I’ll wager a good number of those bypassed bridges were demolished long before nationalisation yet they still appear to have been part of the numbering sequence. It certainly suggests bridges on that canal were numbered before the 1820s.

 

Of course some canal companies used names which is OK if you had relatively few in number - which would have been the case with river navigations - but it’s probably not ideal on a large population of assets of which most are pretty mundane.

 

JP

Edited January 8, 2020 by Captain Pegg

[haggis]

The bridges are numbered on the Glasgow and Edinburgh Union canal and on the Forth and Clyde canal in Scotland but I have no idea when they were numbered! I "think" the bridges on the Crinan canal also have numbers but I am not sure about the Caledonian and Crinan

 

haggis

[Ray T]

The section of the Coventry Canal  which was built by The Fazeley & Birmingham all had bridge names, not numbers, from Fazeley Junction to Whittington.

 

The B & F was constructed between 1770 and 1789 and subsequently became part of the BCN in 1794.

Edited January 8, 2020 by Ray T

[Chris Lowe]

Looking at old OS maps as I've been doing canalmaponline, I haven't seen any marked with numbers but if they where named OS put the name on the map and some of the original names are not the same as the current names.

[Pluto]

I was the one who sent an enquiry to Joseph, following an enquiry which was sent to me. My initial response was:

 

I am fairly certain that bridge numbering was standardised around the time of the 1968 Transport Act which set new parameters for the maintenance of bridges. British Waterways had previously, to some extent, only been responsible for the surface of the bridge's highway, with the new Act giving responsibility for load bearing aspects. There was a national survey of bridges, identifying who was responsible for each bridge. Those built after a canal opened, such as railway bridges and strengthened road bridges, were usually not the responsibility of the canal company. The survey identified the type, possible maximum load, and ownership of all canal bridges. The work was probably done as part of a national general engineering survey done in 1965-1966, which could have resulted in bridge re-numbering. Having quickly looked at the holdings in the Waterways Archive at Ellesmere Port, this does seem to be more likely, with the original survey taking place from 1963.

 

Some canals had never numbered their bridges, relying upon names. Such bridges seem to have acquired numbers at this time. On the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, a simple number meant that the bridge was the responsibility of British Waterways, while if a letter was used, the responsibility lay elsewhere.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, David Mack said:

Staffs and Works had cast iron name and number plates that predate nationalisation. 

Somewhere I have a photo of a Trent and Mersey bridge which has one number on a BW oval plate and another carved into a block of stone in the brick parapet, leading me to think that the bridges were renumbered at some point.

On most canals railway bridges aren't numbered (or have been given letter suffix numbers). Does that mean that numbering was originally done before the railways were built?

I have that photo as well on the Cheshire locks

[john6767]

3 hours ago, Ray T said:

The section of the Coventry Canal  which was built by The Fazeley & Birmingham all had bridge names, not numbers, from Fazeley Junction to Whittington.

 

The B & F was constructed between 1770 and 1789 and subsequently became part of the BCN in 1794.

Of course on all the BCN the bridges have names not numbers.

[magpie patrick]

The numbering on the Llangollen would suggest pre-nationalisation. The bridge numbers start at 1 at Hurleston, and reach 69 at Welsh Frankton, then start again at 1 counting up towards Llangollen. Bridge 70 is on what is now known as the Montgomery canal, which was administered as the main line (Hurleston to Carreghofa) by the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company. By the time the canal was nationalised the route between Welsh Frankton and Carreghofa had been abandoned.

 

For a short time Bridge 1 at Welsh Frankton actually bore the number 70, and then counting began again at Bridge 2. 

[Chris Lowe]

56 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

The numbering on the Llangollen would suggest pre-nationalisation. The bridge numbers start at 1 at Hurleston, and reach 69 at Welsh Frankton, then start again at 1 counting up towards Llangollen. Bridge 70 is on what is now known as the Montgomery canal, which was administered as the main line (Hurleston to Carreghofa) by the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company. By the time the canal was nationalised the route between Welsh Frankton and Carreghofa had been abandoned.

 

For a short time Bridge 1 at Welsh Frankton actually bore the number 70, and then counting began again at Bridge 2. 

The bridge numbering there can be a bit confusing as it is based on the original Ellesmere canal company numbering for the bridges, and they didn't finish building their main line a stub of it is at Trevor, and what is now called the Weston arm would have been the mainline to Shrewsbury.

[Joseph]

Good evening all

 

Many thanks. I agree with Patrick - the Shropshire Union numberings are highly suspicious, as if numbering was done after 1936 (date of the breach) there would be no need to do any numbering.

 

Haggis, I had no idea that bridges on the lowland canals were numbered. Possibly post-nationalisation or a result of railway company ownership? 

 

Mike, I think you're right to go back to the 1960s, but I suspect earlier.

 

Our speculations are getting more and more like informed speculation, but I wonder if anyone can find some concrete evidence. I'm in the Waterways Archive this Friday and will have a look at one or two records.

 

Joseph

[magpie patrick]

Speculation - most canal companies would I think have found the need for some kind of asset register early on, even if they hadn't got this on day one. I'll ask the Coal Canal archivist what we know about that canal, as it will give an insight into what others might have done.

 

With regard to responsibility for bridges, the Great Western Railway clearly felt they had to act given the once ubiquitous (and still not uncommon) diamond shaped weight restriction plate they put on their canal bridges.  

 

Going back to the Llangollen  the numbering fits the route as described in Bradshaw 1904* - Hurleston to Carreghofa with branches. I will check what happens to the numbering at Carreghofa, it may continue to Newtown.

 

* for the avoidance of doubt Bradshaw doesn't usually mention bridge numbers and his lock numbering can be suspect compared to the canal company version. However the Ellesmere Canal Bridge numbering fits the routes Bradshaw gives an inventory for.

[Rose Narrowboats]

The Oxford certainly used bridge numbers prior to 1830.

[magpie patrick]

3 minutes ago, Rose Narrowboats said:

The Oxford certainly used bridge numbers prior to 1830.

I'm not entirely surprised - 90 miles of canal (pre-straightening) and well over 100 bridges, potential for names to be duplicated in different locations as well as the common issue of the same bridge having different names depending on who you asked etc etc

[Captain Pegg]

8 hours ago, Joseph said:

Good evening all

 

Many thanks. I agree with Patrick - the Shropshire Union numberings are highly suspicious, as if numbering was done after 1936 (date of the breach) there would be no need to do any numbering.

 

Haggis, I had no idea that bridges on the lowland canals were numbered. Possibly post-nationalisation or a result of railway company ownership? 

 

Mike, I think you're right to go back to the 1960s, but I suspect earlier.

 

Our speculations are getting more and more like informed speculation, but I wonder if anyone can find some concrete evidence. I'm in the Waterways Archive this Friday and will have a look at one or two records.

 

Joseph

I think you may have misinterpreted @Pluto‘s initial response in formulating your initial question. You ask when did bridge numbering start and I don’t think anyone is saying anything other than that some - perhaps most - independent canal companies numbered their bridges prior to nationalisation.

 

What Mike does say is that the BWB had a programme to standardise bridge numbering and that resulted in some canals that had never had numbers applied to their bridges gaining them at that time. By inference that comment acknowledges that other canals had numbered bridges.

 

JP

[magpie patrick]

1 hour ago, Captain Pegg said:

I think you may have misinterpreted @Pluto‘s initial response in formulating your initial question. You ask when did bridge numbering start and I don’t think anyone is saying anything other than that some - perhaps most - independent canal companies numbered their bridges prior to nationalisation.

 

What Mike does say is that the BWB had a programme to standardise bridge numbering and that resulted in some canals that had never had numbers applied to their bridges gaining them at that time. By inference that comment acknowledges that other canals had numbered bridges.

 

JP

I think that @Pluto has unwittingly made an interesting point.  Mike's interest started with the L&L and he has tended to compare and contrast the rest of the network with that, whereas those of us from further south (which for the canal system is most of us) tend to observe in the opposite direction - the L&L is rather different from the rest on many counts, how one views that depends on which end of the telescope one is looking through. 

 

BW undoubtedly reviewed bridge numbering after the 1968 Act, but I suspect in most cases concluded that the system they'd inherited on each canal was fit for purpose - for a system to work it doesn't need to give every bridge a sequential number, it just needs each bridge to be uniquely identifiable, so if there are gaps, or a's and b's thrown into the mix it doesn't matter. Presumably even the names on the BCN were sufficient as unique identifiers. 

 

Presumably either the L&L system wasn't fit for purpose (I seem to remember Pluto telling us they they used to run the canal out of four depots? That might run the risk of each depot's system being okay in isolation but not when combined) or that the management team for the L&L took a different approach to everyone else. 

[Joseph]

Good morning all!

 

Blimey, I thought this might raise one or two replies eventually, but it does seem to have begun to mine a seam. JP, I take your point about Pluto's original observation - I have rather branched away from that. It struck me as a question that has never been asked - not my knowledge, anyway!

 

I've had a look through Hugh Compton's book on the Oxford Canal - bridge-numbering not mentioned, but no reason why it should be.  

 

Another price of semi-speculation is about the first BW pleasure cruising booklets. In the 1980s, the late Christopher Marsh told me how these started - with the infamous straight line!! - on the basis that pleasure boaters would need to know whether there were any shops, other amenities etc at each bridge. I assume (maybe wrongly) that regular boat people would know their route and its facilities pretty well, whereas holidaymakers (hirers, especially) might not know anything about the canals that they were visiting, and thus when to stop to look for shops, fuel etc. (In writing this, it occurs to me that in the 1950s and 1960s there were far more village shops etc, most of which have now gone). So bridge numbers would be essential.   

 

Patrick, you raise a fascinating question here, and one over which someone could spend a great deal of interesting research. It's really this - just how were canals managed? And how did these differ from canal to canal? I'm aware of different working practices in carrying, and I assume there were variations in the practical management of canal ownership. A nice project for someone with a decade to spare!

 

Great to see such a response - many thanks!

 

Joseph  

 

  

[Nightwatch]

21 hours ago, Athy said:

Very good point.

I too suspect that numbering happened long before nationalisation, because there are gaps in the bridge number series on some canals - certainly on the Oxford - where bridges have been removed. Sometimes the only trace of them is a narrowing of the cut (e.g. just below Cropredy lock), suggesting that they were dismantled long, long ago.

Probably nothing related to your musing in your post.

Must be about 8-9 or even 10 years ago a choice collection of our finest decided that all of the ‘cast’ canal signs on the Oxford between from,  say, Cropredy and Fenny ought to be removed and melted down, presumably for money making purposes. 

This does not reflect away from your points, but doesn’t make it clearer.

 

[Pluto]

What I was trying to suggest is that some canals, like the L&LC, did not use numbers, but that others, as mentioned above, did. A national survey was made, I suspect in the 1960s and which Joseph should be able to find in the Waterways Archive, which identified ownership and responsibility for every bridge on the canal system. The division of responsibilities between the different parts of the nationalised industries and other authorities may have been the catalyst for this survey. It certainly brought some standardisation to the system, but it seems not one completely uniform.

 

With regard to identifying bridges on the L&LC, I have found lists compiled at least as far back as the 1840s for the eastern end, from Blackburn to Leeds, with a list for those from Blackburn to the bottom of Wigan Locks dating from 1910, and a further list for the western end, from Liverpool to the Wigan dating from 1775. Bridge numbers were used, though it is a little uncertain where the numbering started and finished, and records relating to canal activity usually use bridge names to identify sites. This link http://www.mikeclarke.myzen.co.uk/Bridges.pdf is to a list I compiled in 2008, which should give some idea of the difficulty in identifying bridges, particularly those in Liverpool, where the majority towards the end of the canal were built after the canal was completed. I have tried to include name changes for bridges in this area, and there was the occasional change elsewhere.

 

I don't think there was a similar national survey of locks, but exactly the same sort of problems can be found in naming and numbering them.

[David Mack]

9 minutes ago, Pluto said:

 

I don't think there was a similar national survey of locks, but exactly the same sort of problems can be found in naming and numbering them.

 

Although the size, number and location of locks tends to vary much less over time than the size, number and location of bridges.

[Pluto]

13 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

Although the size, number and location of locks tends to vary much less over time than the size, number and location of bridges.

Not exactly true for the larger Yorkshire river navigations, but I take your point. The bridge survey was also to identify responsibility for maintenance, something not needed for locks.

[Rose Narrowboats]

7 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

I'm not entirely surprised - 90 miles of canal (pre-straightening) and well over 100 bridges, potential for names to be duplicated in different locations as well as the common issue of the same bridge having different names depending on who you asked etc etc

Nearer three hundred bridges originally . I suspect the Oxford started using names only as the early maps show unique names for each bridge and not numbers, but that a numbering system was in use by the time the canal was completed to Oxford.

 

The numbering system itself was originally quite arcane: Lift, swing and fixed bridges all had their own number sequences, all starting at "1". Evidence of this can still be seen in a couple of bridges south of Banbury which still bear the original number (carved into the keystone) as well as the post straightening number (on cast iron plate) which is a higher number.

[Rose Narrowboats]

4 hours ago, Joseph said:

Good morning all!

 

Blimey, I thought this might raise one or two replies eventually, but it does seem to have begun to mine a seam. JP, I take your point about Pluto's original observation - I have rather branched away from that. It struck me as a question that has never been asked - not my knowledge, anyway!

 

I've had a look through Hugh Compton's book on the Oxford Canal - bridge-numbering not mentioned, but no reason why it should be.  

 

Another price of semi-speculation is about the first BW pleasure cruising booklets. In the 1980s, the late Christopher Marsh told me how these started - with the infamous straight line!! - on the basis that pleasure boaters would need to know whether there were any shops, other amenities etc at each bridge. I assume (maybe wrongly) that regular boat people would know their route and its facilities pretty well, whereas holidaymakers (hirers, especially) might not know anything about the canals that they were visiting, and thus when to stop to look for shops, fuel etc. (In writing this, it occurs to me that in the 1950s and 1960s there were far more village shops etc, most of which have now gone). So bridge numbers would be essential.   

 

Patrick, you raise a fascinating question here, and one over which someone could spend a great deal of interesting research. It's really this - just how were canals managed? And how did these differ from canal to canal? I'm aware of different working practices in carrying, and I assume there were variations in the practical management of canal ownership. A nice project for someone with a decade to spare!

 

Great to see such a response - many thanks!

 

Joseph  

 

  

The OCC numbers are in the length books. I have a copy of the most recent (1840) complete book which was still in use in the 1970s when my copy was made. The earlier ones and the 1925 part survey from Longford to Napton are at Ellesmere Port and will answer a lot of pointless questions I have about OCC bridges when I get time to get up there.

 

The BW cruising guides where part of the drive to encourage pleasure boating - their use by commercial crews was never considered as a) they generally knew exactly where they where so didn't need them, and b) the vast majority wouldn't have been able to read them.