Wardle Lock - Branch or Canal?

[Heartland]

It is hard not to argue that that Ashton Canal branch is not the shortest unless private basins are considered in this quest.

 

As to the Dudley Canal branch in Birmingham, this is an map of the canal from the first o/s.

 

 

[magpie patrick]

@Heartland

 

The Dudley one is interesting as it doesn't come off the Dudley canal! The Somerset Coal Canal Company had a wharf on the K&A in Bath but having a whole basin off someone else's canal takes it to another level entirely 

[Pluto]

The Bridgewater had a branch/basin off the bottom of Stanley Locks. They were annoyed when they had to pay tolls to the L&LC to access the basin from the docks.

[magpie patrick]

37 minutes ago, Pluto said:

The Bridgewater had a branch/basin off the bottom of Stanley Locks. They were annoyed when they had to pay tolls to the L&LC to access the basin from the docks.

 

I'm not sure what else the the Bridgwater Company would expect! I generally get the impression that commercial practices in the 19th century would make a even a banker blush...

[Derek R.]

Nothing makes Bankers blush. It never has in the past, and does not in the present.

[Heartland]

The Bridgewater also had a dock and link to the Mersey at Liverpool to note

 

 

[Pluto]

The Mersey & Irwell also had a dock, which disappeared when the new Dock Office was built at Pier Head.The plan dates from circa 1820.

 

The Bridgewater wanted a dock connected to the North Docks, where much of the more lucrative traffic was handled. Their agreement with the L&LC terminated in 1920, when lack of Government support for financial damage during the war led to several canal company carrying fleets being sold off.

[Ray T]

Not the shortest but has the words "branch" & "canal" in its name.

 

From David Blagroves "At the heart of the Waterway's"

 

"Braunston Branch Canal."

"The last significant addition the the Grand Junction's assets in Braunston in these years was the short Braunston Branch, a canal of some 200 yards running south east from the main line junction with the Oxford Canal , along the two sides of the larger reservoir and back to the main line, passing under Nibbets Lane. It seems to have been constructed in two parts, the first from the Oxford Canal Junction to the warehouse in Nibbets Lane and was presumably carried out at the same time as the reservoirs, some time after 1806. ( possibly 1834)"

 

Edited May 10 by Ray T

[Richard Carter]

17 hours ago, Ray T said:

Not the shortest but has the words "branch" & "canal" in its name.

 

From David Blagroves "At the heart of the Waterway's"

 

"Braunston Branch Canal."

"The last significant addition the the Grand Junction's assets in Braunston in these years was the short Braunston Branch, a canal of some 200 yards running south east from the main line junction with the Oxford Canal , along the two sides of the larger reservoir and back to the main line, passing under Nibbets Lane. It seems to have been constructed in two parts, the first from the Oxford Canal Junction to the warehouse in Nibbets Lane and was presumably carried out at the same time as the reservoirs, some time after 1806. ( possibly 1834)"

 

 

I've been curious about this since it came up in another thread a few years ago - the reservoirs were not connected to the canal, as the whole point was to save Grand Junction water and pump it back up to the summit, so was there a culvert under the branch canal between the two eastern reservoirs? Or was that eastern part of the branch actually decommissioned (incorporated into the resi? and maybe replaced by the western part from the Oxford Canal?) when the reservoirs were built, and they never co-existed?

[JoeC]

Wardle ... below info from the Trent and Mersey Canal Society website ( Wardle Canal and Lock – Trent & Mersey Canal Society (trentandmerseycanalsociety.org.uk) ) :

 

The Wardle Canal is often called “the shortest canal in Britain” (110 yards including Wardle Lock, according to Jean Lindsay’s history of the Trent & Mersey Canal, but only 154 feet according to a 2001 plaque on the entrance bridge). It was originally built as the Wardle Green Branch of the Trent and Mersey Canal, but the entrance bridge is inscribed “Wardle Canal 1829”. It was built so that the Trent and Mersey Canal could charge heavy compensation tolls on all traffic between their canal and the Middlewich Branch of  the Shropshire Union Canal.

[magpie patrick]

6 hours ago, JoeC said:

Wardle ... below info from the Trent and Mersey Canal Society website ( Wardle Canal and Lock – Trent & Mersey Canal Society (trentandmerseycanalsociety.org.uk) ) :

 

The Wardle Canal is often called “the shortest canal in Britain” (110 yards including Wardle Lock, according to Jean Lindsay’s history of the Trent & Mersey Canal, but only 154 feet according to a 2001 plaque on the entrance bridge). It was originally built as the Wardle Green Branch of the Trent and Mersey Canal, but the entrance bridge is inscribed “Wardle Canal 1829”. It was built so that the Trent and Mersey Canal could charge heavy compensation tolls on all traffic between their canal and the Middlewich Branch of  the Shropshire Union Canal.

 It was exactly that which I was challenging - the "shortest canal in Britain"  claim is little more than folklore as the above discussion has suggested, and even the T&MCS only say "is often called..." 

 

The full statement The Wardle Canal is often called “the shortest canal in Britain” is probably true, although it's unlikely anyone has measured the frequency with which the claim is made - it actually being the shortest canal in Britain is another matter entirely!

 

It's also not 110 yards long - it's only about 83 yards long, but one or two other canals (using the same criteria - a short branch belonging to one company connecting to another company's canal) are even shorter.