Wardle Lock - Branch or Canal?

[magpie patrick]

Having read yet another claim that the "Wardle Canal" is the shortest canal in the kingdom, if not the universe, I'm questioning this on the basis of the definition of "Canal". I know it's always difficult to pin things down and nomenclature varies (more on that later) - what, for example, is the Llangollen Canal? It exists only as a modern name. 

 

However, to my way of thinking as a historian a canal, as distinct from a branch off a canal, was built BY a separate entity, sometimes these merged so that the many became one (Shropshire Union, Grand Union) but never the reverse. I may refer to the Caldon Canal but most historians know it is shorthand for the Caldon Branch of the Trent and Mersey Canal. I note that Bradshaw (1904 but I think all of them) refers to canals as separate entities even when they were later owned by the same company - e.g. the Ashton, Peak Forest and Macclesfield are identified as separate canals within the ownership of the Great Central Railway. Bradshaw identifies the Wardle Branch as a branch of the T&M, in turn owned by the North Staffs Railway. 

 

In addition to this, I suspect that most modern boaters, those who only know of the Llangollen Canal and not the Ellesmere Canal, think of Wardle Lock as being on the Middlewich Branch (and may not even be sure which canal the Middlewich Branch is a branch of) 

 

So how did the Wardle Branch become a canal? And if we're going to count a branch of the T&M as a separate canal, is there anything shorter? Some basin on the BCN perhaps? After all, a basin on the BCN may actually have been built by a separate company!

[Tracy D'arth]

Says canal on the signs. Maureen always said "canal" and it was the canal to the gauging lock outside the cottage at the end of the Middlewich Branch.

[magpie patrick]

13 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Says canal on the signs. Maureen always said "canal" and it was the canal to the gauging lock outside the cottage at the end of the Middlewich Branch.

 

Neither of which really cut the mustard for a place in the Guinness book of records or any definitive source - "someone" decided this branch was a canal in itself - clearly that someone wasn't the T&M or the North Staffordshire Railway, who were the owners and managers of it. 

[adam1uk]

Surely a branch is also a canal -- although a canal is not necessarily a branch.

[Tracy D'arth]

2 minutes ago, adam1uk said:

Surely a branch is also a canal -- although a canal is not necessarily a branch.

You have twigged it!

[ditchcrawler]

14 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

 

Neither of which really cut the mustard for a place in the Guinness book of records or any definitive source - "someone" decided this branch was a canal in itself - clearly that someone wasn't the T&M or the North Staffordshire Railway, who were the owners and managers of it. 

A brave man who would argue with Maureen when she was alive 

[magpie patrick]

12 minutes ago, adam1uk said:

Surely a branch is also a canal -- although a canal is not necessarily a branch.

 

Perhaps - but if the "shortest canal" is a branch canal, is there something shorter? The old side lock to the river at Figure of Three is probably shorter, but not counted as a canal. 

 

This is often a problem, to establish this record, a particular definition of canal has been used, but not consistently applied 

 

28 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

You have twigged it!

 

Can you justify that? My reasoning is that a branch canal is subservient to the main line and was built by the company that owned the main line. Their interests were for the main line in the first instance and the branch line served this bigger purpose. This was particularly true of the Wardle Branch, which was basically a protectionist measure by the T&M. 

 

For an example of the opposite logic, the Newport Pagnell canal looks at first site like a branch off the Grand Junction, but the Grand Junction couldn't see enough benefit in building a branch to the town - the benefit was to Newport Pagnell, but that wasn't the GJCs problem, so a separate company built the canal. 

[David Mack]

Who built the Middlewich Branch? Is it a 'canal' or a 'branch'? Was the Wardle Canal built by the T&M company under the powers of the Middlewich Branch, rather than T&M company's own powers? If so then perhaps it isn't technically a branch of the T&M Canal, but a separate freestanding canal which just happened to have been built by the same company.

[magpie patrick]

6 hours ago, David Mack said:

Who built the Middlewich Branch? Is it a 'canal' or a 'branch'? Was the Wardle Canal built by the T&M company under the powers of the Middlewich Branch, rather than T&M company's own powers? If so then perhaps it isn't technically a branch of the T&M Canal, but a separate freestanding canal which just happened to have been built by the same company.

 

At about the waking hour as i was preparing my first cup of coffee a similar thought came into my head - who's enabling legislation was used? 

 

This did in turn lead me to wonder who's enabling legislation was used for the Hall Green branch of the T&M which served a similar purpose.

[Tracy D'arth]

 A point missed I think,    Branch and Twig?  Twigged?

Edited May 3 by Tracy D'arth

[Heartland]

Is it no news May?

 

I prefer to use the term canal for the link between the Trent and Mersey and the Shropshire Union (Ellesmere and Chester) Canal.

 

It provided a useful toll for the Trent and Mersey- see my book and that of Peter Brown.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, Tracy D'arth said:

 A point missed I think,    Branch and Twig?  Twigged?

Never mind

[magpie patrick]

1 hour ago, Tracy D'arth said:

 A point missed I think,    Branch and Twig?  Twigged?

 Only when I had coffee this morning! Can we leaf the puns alone now?  

46 minutes ago, Heartland said:

It provided a useful toll for the Trent and Mersey- see my book and that of Peter Brown.

 I don't doubt that, and I must get hold of (and read) a copy of your book. 

 

But in a way that's why I think it is a branch - it's purpose was to benefit the whole undertaking. 

 

There are further questions that come out of this - given that failure to build Wardle Lock would have frustrated the objectives of the rest of the Middlewich branch, was there some compulsion on the T&M to keep their half of the bargain? Similar  at Hall Green. 

46 minutes ago, Heartland said:

Is it no news May?

 

 

It's called an enquiring mind Ray  and also a pedantic one   . I was enquiring as to why the Wardle Branch could claim to be the shortest canal in the country as this seemed to be using a definition of "canal" that wasn't applied elsewhere, and if it was other records could be claimed. The Churchbridge Branch of the BCN, if counted as a stand-alone canal would be the most densely locked canal on the network with 13 locks in 5 furlongs giving an average of just over 20 locks a mile. The very short arm of the Ashton that connects Portland Basin to the Peak Forest Canal wold be the only canal almost entirely on an aqueduct.  And, incidentally, that branch is also quite a bit shorter than the Wardle Branch... (Dons hard hat and retreats....)

[billh]

I could be wrong ,I was once, but didn't the Ashton Branch over the aqueduct also include the arm in Dukinfield that is now Portland Basin Marina? That would extend its length to about 200 yards. Had the PF and Ashton Companies merged by the time of construction anyway?

[magpie patrick]

7 minutes ago, billh said:

I could be wrong ,I was once, but didn't the Ashton Branch over the aqueduct also include the arm in Dukinfield that is now Portland Basin Marina? That would extend its length to about 200 yards. Had the PF and Ashton Companies merged by the time of construction anyway?

 There is a Milestone almost on the aqueduct on the PF side that is mile zero for the PF. If that really is the start then Portland Basin Marina comes off several yards up the Peak Forest. That milepost is around 150 feet from the nearest point of the Ashton Canal main line (determined by drawing a line connecting the edge of the bank one side of the junction to the edge of the bank the other side

 

Whilst Wikipedia claims that the Wardle Canal is only 145 feet long, VAR in the form of Google Earth gives 76m (250 feet) from the nearest point on the T&M (determined as above) main line to the top gate of Wardle Lock. 

[Pluto]

Below is the 'official' map of the Peak Forest dating from around 1890, possibly as a result of the Railway & Canal Tolls legislation, as several similar canal, maps date from this time. The original PF milestone is marked, but by this time they considered that the PF started at the junction.

 

Another contender is Lock 92 on the Rochdale Canal, which was built and operated by the Bridgewater. The detail design of the lock is very different to the other Rochdale locks.

[magpie patrick]

30 minutes ago, Pluto said:

Below is the 'official' map of the Peak Forest dating from around 1890, possibly as a result of the Railway & Canal Tolls legislation, as several similar canal, maps date from this time. The original PF milestone is marked, but by this time they considered that the PF started at the junction.

 

Another contender is Lock 92 on the Rochdale Canal, which was built and operated by the Bridgewater. The detail design of the lock is very different to the other Rochdale locks.

 It's always good when you join in @Pluto because you usually have evidence! 

 

Interesting to note that the junction on that plan is the east face of the bridge not the line of the bank either side. 

33 minutes ago, Pluto said:

Another contender is Lock 92 on the Rochdale Canal, which was built and operated by the Bridgewater. The detail design of the lock is very different to the other Rochdale locks.

 Using my system of measurement that one is 66 metres long, so we have the Portland branch of the Ashton at 45 metres long, then Dukes lock at 66 metres long, and then the Wardle Branch at 76 metres. 

 

The claim for the "Wardle Canal" to be the shortest is beginning to look a bit shaky on both counts

[Derek R.]

The entrance to the Wardle Canal. The first lock is 154ft beyond.

 

[magpie patrick]

On 03/05/2024 at 20:55, Derek R. said:

The entrance to the Wardle Canal. The first lock is 154ft beyond.

 

But which end of the lock? The top gate is more like 220 feet away. 

 

The whole "Wardle Canal is the shortest" strikes me as someone making a claim without checking their facts, and that claim becoming accepted fact. 

 

My contention is that the Wardle Canal is not a canal in its own right, and if it is, there are shorter ones using the same definition of "canal". 

[Derek R.]

Without 'knowing' for certain I would imagine it would be the bottom gates.

Top or bottom, why should it matter? It is there, it is acknowledged in stone (by name) and in printed literature. It is part of canal history as being built for the Trent and Mersey to maintain control over the junction, and I'm certainly not going to lose sleep over precisely where it starts or ends. As to whether it's a canal or not, whether historians will debate its length, makes no difference to the fact - it exists as a canal or part of a canal. As to ownership - CRT, for now. With or without lock. As the lock has been called Wardle lock, maybe the 'Wardle canal' incorporates the lock. But then the Middlewich branch could not operate without that lock, and when the top gates are open, the water is part of the Middlewich Branch. When closed, of the Wardle. And who was Wardle?

 

As to being concerned with measurements, I was quoting various claims. Where beneath the bridge do we start from; Face of the bridge? Which side? In the middle? Where the coping stones begin to curve towards? At the centre of the junction mid canal? It can get silly.

 

noun

1. An artificial waterway or artificially improved river used for travel, shipping, or irrigation.
2. A tube, duct, or passageway.
3. One of the faint, hazy markings resembling straight lines on early telescopic images of the surface of Mars.

[magpie patrick]

6 hours ago, Derek R. said:

Without 'knowing' for certain I would imagine it would be the bottom gates.

Top or bottom, why should it matter?

 

Because the claim is that the canal is the shortest at 154 feet long, and the top gates are some 70 plus feet further away from any sign, junction or bridge than the bottom gates. There is no dispute that the Wardle Branch includes the lock, it would be distinctly odd if the Wardle Canal didn't!

 

It's a footnote in canal history, but when folklore and fable become regarded as facts then, for the historian, something is lost. I've a number of publications from the sixties and seventies that state unequivocally that Tardebigge Top lock is 14 feet deep* and is the deepest in the country. This has since been discredited on both counts even without deeper locks on the Ashton and Peak Forest getting added to the top end of that particular list of records. Tardebigge is 11 foot 7 inches and even in the 60s before restoration got going there were 6 narrow locks deeper than that. 

 

*The claim for Tardebigge being 14 feet is made in Bradshaw 1904 - which may be where the fable started, however in 1904 there were deeper locks on the Glamorgan Canal so it wasn't the deepest 

 

The only argument presented that gives the Wardle Canal claim a free pass is that made by @David Mack, that it may have had special enabling legislation and thus is a canal in its own right when other contenders are not - by any other definition it's either not a canal in it's own right or it's not the shortest. 

[Heartland]

A discussion of interest, as it questions what is the shortest canal and may be it might be relevant to mention an older term sluice and in this discussion what is a canal. Is a basin off a canal a canal and lengths of basins vary.

And, whilst this discussion goes on, the Dudley Canal had branch canal from south of Worcester Bar under Gas Street and Berkeley Street towards Granville Street and again is a contender for a short waterway having been built in stages for the Netherton Coal Company which was a trading company associated with the Dudley Canal Company. As a separate and independent waterway from the Worcester & Birmingham Canal and rate books quote the owner as the Dudley Canal. The first part as built to Berkeley Street would have been shorter I suspect than the Wardle and it was made earlier, of course.

 

Edited May 5 by Heartland

[Derek R.]

Folk law and fable, myths and legends, sorcerers and alchemists - vs - engineers reports and measured elements.

The first group requires a degree of belief, the second a reliance on the accuracy of reporting and how it might have been transcribed over the period of time from design and build, to present day. There's room for error, hence certain disgreements. (NOTE: I am not stating I disagree with 154ft, as I do not know between which two points such a measurement was taken. But add 72 ft to 154 gives 226ft, but then there is the length of the longest boat being usable within the chamber with the bottom gate(s) being able to close, and the distance between cill and top gate. Then at what point do we begin to measure from the junction? Lasers at dawn? Not for me.

 

And who or what was Wardle?

Edited May 6 by Derek R.

[Heartland]

According to the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway distance tables for the Ashton Canal, the canal across the Tame to join the Peak Forest Canal was two chains long.

 

Is this a canal, branch, or part of the junction ? the measurements were taken before lasers !

[David Mack]

2 hours ago, Heartland said:

According to the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway distance tables for the Ashton Canal, the canal across the Tame to join the Peak Forest Canal was two chains long.

 

Is this a canal, branch, or part of the junction ? the measurements were taken before lasers !

Is was probably measured with a chain. It's how it was done back in the day!