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Aqueduct crowned world 'wonder'


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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/8115190.stm

 

Aqueduct crowned world 'wonder'

 

A 200-year-old aqueduct near Wrexham has been crowned as one of the heritage "wonders" of the world.

 

Pontcysyllte aqueduct was added to the list of World Heritage Sites by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco)...... (more)

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That's all we need, ticket office at both ends, viewing platforms for Nikon wielding gongoozlers under construction, and no flower boxes/sat dishes or other items allowed on boat roofs without planning permission.

With the whole canal being designated, I wonder if this will affect the maintenance and moorings.

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That's all we need, ticket office at both ends, viewing platforms for Nikon wielding gongoozlers under construction, and no flower boxes/sat dishes or other items allowed on boat roofs without planning permission.

With the whole canal being designated, I wonder if this will affect the maintenance and moorings.

 

 

The water front at Liverpool is also designated and they have managed to build a brand new canal plus a museum and two big glass buildings, so I think you are worrying over nothing.

 

it probably explains why there is a TV camera there today.

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Funny how one of the first things the local council gurgles about is the financial rewards.

Just as long as they realise that visitor numbers sometimes go down after WHS inscription (e.g. Greenwich) and that the rigours of the UNESC)-mandated management plan and heritage protection requirements usually constrain many tourism and money-making opportunities. It's definitely not the panacea that the politicians and tourism authorities want.

Edited by stort_mark
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Personally, I don't think Pontcysyllte is an ideal site to represent Britain's canals at World Heritage level. It may be a superb structure, but nothing similar was built elsewhere in the world, and the canal itself was a failure.

What is important internationally about Britain's canals is that the successful ones were promoted and built by the rising merchant class of the eighteenth century. It was this investment by local people to solve local transport problems for local industry which was the key to the industrial revolution. If I were to nominate a British waterways world heritage site it would be the Aire & Calder, or the early eighteenth century waterways associated with Liverpool.

Any other suggestions?

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I notice they got their facts wrong again and credit it to Telford. Thomas Telford was little more than a clerk on the Ellesmere Canal. I suggest they read Hadfield's 'Thomas Telford's Temptation' for the true story.

 

William Jessop was the engineer to the Ellesmere Canal and would have carried the can if the aquaduct had been a failure. He should be credited with its success.

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I've always promised myself that I'll learn to pronounce it before using it :lol:

I decided to do it the other way round. Life's too short, after all! :lol:

 

Stewey

 

Edited to say that the promulgation of this section of the Llangollen Canal as a World Heritage Site is great news.

Edited by stewey
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I notice they got their facts wrong again and credit it to Telford. Thomas Telford was little more than a clerk on the Ellesmere Canal. I suggest they read Hadfield's 'Thomas Telford's Temptation' for the true story.

 

William Jessop was the engineer to the Ellesmere Canal and would have carried the can if the aquaduct had been a failure. He should be credited with its success.

 

Neil, have you read Christopher Gotch's book "The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal and Robert Mylne"? In Chapter 9 he makes a fairly damning assessment of Jessop's character and suggests that Jessop lacked probity, and more importantly, any skill with cast iron. There is, as Hadfield noted, a lack of personal records from the Jessop family, but there is plentiful evidence from the other engineers he corresponded with. Although the Ellesmere Canal doesn't rank high in the Chapter for obvious reasons, Gotch states that Telford in effect carried Jessop. He also suggests that Hadfield wasn't entirely objective about Jessop and I would agree that "Thomas Telford's Temptation" doesn't read as other Hadfield histories do, it seeks to solve a hypothesis rather than state bald facts

 

 

I wont delve into the probity although there is no doubt Mylne and others had a low opinion of Jessop. I think Jessop could have simply had the sense to realise his underling knew better than himself and let him get on with it, so Telford deserves a lot of the credit

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But who built the earlier (1797) Longden-on-Tern aqueduct (the true precursor of Pontcysyllte) on the Shrewbury Canal?

 

According to Wikipedia (?) the principal engineers were Josiah Clowes and one Thomas Telford.

 

Stewey

 

Edited to add link to Wikipaedia article (and to note magpie patrick posted at the same time with the same info!):

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrewsbury_Canal

Edited by stewey
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I believe the Butterley Company had made a cast iron trough aquaduct for the Derby Canal some years prior to Pontcysyllte. Founders of Butterley Co. were Benjamin Outram and one William Jessop.....

 

I believe so, although not in a position to check at this moment, \Outram was no stranger to iron either. It is a huge leap from that aqueduct to Pontcysyllte though.

 

Telford though built Longden On Tern Aqueduct, which had several piers and is something of a prototype for Pontcysyllte (Longden is often thought to be the first iron aqueduct, not so, the one in Derby was) without any assistance from Jessop, and also built iron bridges around Shropshire, noting that Iron Bridge was over engineered by a factor of three and was much more humped than necessary. Mind, Iron Bridge was the first so I think the engineer can be forgiven some caution!

 

:smiley_offtopic:It should be to Derby's eternal shame that they SCRAPPED that aqueduct :lol:

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Telford though built Longden On Tern Aqueduct, which had several piers and is something of a prototype for Pontcysyllte (Longden is often thought to be the first iron aqueduct, not so, the one in Derby was) without any assistance from Jessop, and also built iron bridges around Shropshire, noting that Iron Bridge was over engineered by a factor of three and was much more humped than necessary. Mind, Iron Bridge was the first so I think the engineer can be forgiven some caution!

 

Telford's iron bridge over the Severn dates from 1797, whilst the original one was built c1780. It, the original one, used wooden bridge technology, in effect just replacing the wooden parts with cast iron ones, as they did not completely understand the properties of cast iron. It was only following the Dee Railway Bridge collapse that the limitations of cast iron were fully exposed.

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I notice they got their facts wrong again and credit it to Telford. Thomas Telford was little more than a clerk on the Ellesmere Canal. I suggest they read Hadfield's 'Thomas Telford's Temptation' for the true story.

 

William Jessop was the engineer to the Ellesmere Canal and would have carried the can if the aquaduct had been a failure. He should be credited with its success.

 

It always annoys us that all our -local to the aqueduct- papers only ever mention Telford and no amount of writing to them to correct does any good as their answer is that that is what BW and others have told them. There is also at least one local historian who writes and lectures at length on Telford while never mentioning he was the agent and Jessop was the chief engineer.

 

If you do read the blurb attributed to Telford - the agent and so the man who was then in charge of publicity and spin when the aqueduct open you find the one thing he was good at was self promotion. As for Jessop such stuff never seemed to both him though he was Mayor of Newark.

 

Strangely the Telford/Jessop thing always reminds me of Lee Marvin/James Stewart in 'Who shot liberty Valence with Marvin the pushy one always boosting his fragile ego while Stewart was the quiet man who could be trusted. The bottom line of that film fits too. With a choice of printing the facts and printing the legend you print the legend.

 

Incidently if you want to read another Telford spin document read his report on the about to open second Harecastle tunnel which he WAS chief engineer on.

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If you do read the blurb attributed to Telford - the agent and so the man who was then in charge of publicity and spin when the aqueduct open you find the one thing he was good at was self promotion. As for Jessop such stuff never seemed to both him though he was Mayor of Newark.

Telford was in private practice, so it was very necessary for him to promote his business. The same could be said for engineers like Brindley, the more publicity they received the better for their business. However, there were less well-known engineers who were just as important, but never sought publicity because they already had top civil engineering jobs. Thomas Steers is one of our most important waterway engineers, but as Dock Engineer for Liverpool had no need for publicity, and the same could be said for Jesse Hartley who was Dock Engineer in the mid-nineteenth century. Have a look at the locks up from Stanley Dock to see the quality of his work. Finally, what about Bartholomew, Engineer for the A&CN. One of our most innovative waterway engineers, he never really published anything. He had no need as he was already in what was probably the top inland waterway job at the time. When looking back, it is always important to remember why some people published books and articles, and why some did not.

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Telford was in private practice, so it was very necessary for him to promote his business.

 

Jessop didn't need the publicity. He promoted more canal acts through parliament than any other engineer by far and, quite probably, more than all the other canal engineers put together. Telford in comparison, wasn't even in the running .

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