Bridges on bends

[Josher]

I have always been convinced James Brindley was either drunk, had a serious eyesight problem, was on Belladonna or something that distorts the mind.

 

 

My last house was on a turnpike road built by this fella:

 

John Metcalf (1717–1810), also known as Blind Jack of Knaresborough or Blind Jack Metcalf, was the first of the professional road builders to emerge during the British Industrial Revolution.

 

Blind from the age of six, John had an eventful life, which was well documented by his own account just before his death. In the period 1765 to 1792 he built about 300 km (180 miles) of turnpike road, mainly in the north of England.

 

[DHutch]

It is most likely that where possible canals followed property, parish or field boundaries. Bridges were then often placed at a boundary junction. Likewise old rights of way tended to cross fields at their margins or corner to corner. Bridges that accommodate old rights of way were therefore at the corners of fields - even though now the field boundary may have been ploughed up and disappeared.

I think for the case of a bridge in the middle of a single bend that makes a lot of sence doesnt it.

 

You will probably find that in these cases the road was built first and the canal was aligned (on a bend) to go under the road at 90 degrees. This would mean much simpler bridge construction.

And the of cause this is clearly also very true, where you have a s bend through a bridge.

 

 

 

 

 

I reckon Mr Brindley employed some cheap contractors to put the bridges in place, which they did only approximately because they were dreadful at map reading, and then he came along afterwards and somehow had to build the canal so that it fitted through the bridges.

Haha, i like that idea!

[Henhouse]

But was it best for the carriers though?? surely the greater distances involved cost the carriers money - hence projects like the shortening of the North Oxford when the technology and funds allowed...

 

 

That would obviously depend on how many locks would have been needed to save distance. The lock miles per hour calculation based on the speed a horse boat could travel.

 

How ever far a detour may have been, a canal boat carrying many tons was far more efficient than the Pack Horses it superseded.

 

Also locks use water, and in the early days water supply depended on reservoirs and feeders. Back pumping was not an easy option as it is today.

[Guest]

That would obviously depend on how many locks would have been needed to save distance. The lock miles per hour calculation based on the speed a horse boat could travel.

 

How ever far a detour may have been, a canal boat carrying many tons was far more efficient than the Pack Horses it superseded.

 

Also locks use water, and in the early days water supply depended on reservoirs and feeders. Back pumping was not an easy option as it is today.

 

My understanding though is often (as in the case of the North Oxford) shortening was achieved by tunnels and cuttings...

 

didn't slow the boats down and used no more water.....

Edited June 28, 2010 by NB No Deadlines

[Keeping Up]

My understanding though is often (as in the case of the North Oxford) shortening was achieved by tunnels and cuttings...

 

didn't slow the boats down and used no more water.....

My understanding was that in Brindley's time, nobody had thought of any alternative to going either around or over a hill.

 

Telford was the genius who effectively invented the concept of "cut and fill". When he first proposed a straight line with an embankment and a cutting, he was met by two groups of people who said it couldn't be done: one group said that making a cutting would produce a huge excess of spare soil which would need to be disposed of somehow at great expense, the other group said that making an embankment would require a huge amount of soil which would have to be obtained from somewhere at great expense. Telford merely put the two groups together and often even promised them a canal with which to transport the earth.

 

 

(edit coz I can't trype or spel)

Edited June 28, 2010 by Keeping Up

[Henhouse]

Indeed, Once a canal was up and running and profitable the investors were happy to go ahead with improvements.

 

The important thing was to be operational at the earliest oportunity.

[nb Innisfree]

A straight canal though speeding up transportation was unable to compete with a railway which was soon realised, but a meandering contour canal reached more places and brought more outlying places within reach of goods. Shame they didn't carry on with contours as canal trade might have been more profitable and for longer being able to provide a service that railways couldn't?

[NB Alnwick]

Graham,

 

Have you ever been able to find any documentary evidence for such a claim subsequently ?

 

It does sound unlikely that much of the Watford to Foxton section would have had bridges at any interval as close as 1/4 mile, over large amounts of it's length.

 

On many canals where bridges have been removed, there is still strong evidence of their former existence, including narrowing at some of the points involved, or sometimes the raised approaches to them, if they were not lift or swing bridges.

 

I don't recall large number of bridge narrows with no bridges on that summit, and as commercial use of that stretch failed to reach anything like expectations, (think the economic failure of the Foxton Inclined Plane, due to low traffic levels), it seems unlikely that great expense would have been made to widen the cut as small bridges were removed.

 

I'm not disputing many bridges have gone missing on many canals - clearly they have, but that statistic you were taught about that stretch just doesn't sound right to me, particularly as it is one of the stretches most remote from significant civilisation.

 

I'm not saying it's definitely wrong, but I wonder if the claim can be proven ? Many of the educational materials about canals that are about today, for example, have some very strange ideas in them, (he says, donning his Boatman's bowler!).

 

Many years ago I walked the section from Crick tunnel to Husbands Bosworth Tunnel and noted that the bridges (or obvious foundations of the two bridges that had been removed) were extremely frequent and that there isn't always an obvious reason as to why a bridge was built right out in the middle of nowhere.

 

Today, according to my current issue of Nicholson's (Waterways Guide 3) there are 33 original bridges in this section of just over 11 miles. I don't know how old the bridge numbers are but they generally tally with the current brick or rebuilt bridges. The exceptions being Bridge 35 and Bridge 44 which have been demolished during the last half Century or so - both were brick structures and the remains were visible when I walked the route. Apart from the two on the Welford Arm, I do not know where the wooden bridges were - if indeed there were any?

 

I agree that some teachers having strange ideas - in 1977 whilst in East Germany chasing some of the last real steam trains, we returned to our car (a Morgan four seat tourer) to find it surrounded by children while a smartly dressed man (who we presumed to be a schoolteacher) explained to them that this was typical of the sort of 'altmodisches Auto' still produced in England - he even described how Englishmen invariably wore a 'Melone' - which must have confused the children when they realised that the lurking scruffs in jeans and tee-shirts were with the car . . .

 

My understanding was that in Brindley's time, nobody had thought of any alternative to going either around or over a hill.

 

I agree - in those days, before railways, even the winding contour canals were still infinitely superior to any other means of inland transport. Brindley and his contemporaries had no need of expensive embankments and cuttings but they could build tunnels when a hill really got in the way.

 

Telford was the genius who effectively invented the concept of "cut and fill". When he first proposed a straight line with an embankment and a cutting, he was met by two groups of people who said it couldn't be done: one group said that making a cutting would produce a huge excess of spare soil which would need to be disposed of somehow at great expense, the other group said that making an embankment would require a huge amount of soil which would have to be obtained from somewhere at great expense. Telford merely put the two groups together and often even promised them a canal with which to transport the earth.

 

I think the Romans may have beaten Telford to it - although Telford may not have known that . . .

[Keeping Up]

I think the Romans may have beaten Telford to it - although Telford may not have known that . . .

They may have done, although they seemed equally happy to take a straight line up and down the hills instead of making cuttings and embankments. And of course, their skills were largely lost from this country during the Dark Ages.

[alan_fincher]

Today, according to my current issue of Nicholson's (Waterways Guide 3) there are 33 original bridges in this section of just over 11 miles. I don't know how old the bridge numbers are but they generally tally with the current brick or rebuilt bridges. The exceptions being Bridge 35 and Bridge 44 which have been demolished during the last half Century or so - both were brick structures and the remains were visible when I walked the route. Apart from the two on the Welford Arm, I do not know where the wooden bridges were - if indeed there were any?

Yes,

 

(My comments refer to whole twenty plus miles of summit, not just the bit you refer to....)

 

Frustratingly old versions of Nicholson's often don't have a publication date, but I can tell from the post decimalisation price that I'm looking at one that is post 1971, (but not by much, I believe).

 

That shows bridges 35 & 44 in situ, so it seems likely they have gone in less than the last 40 years.

 

Intriguingly though, that edition doesn't show bridge 14, which is in recent editions. This seems odd, as it looks like it's on an old track - perhaps it has been reinstated ? (Sorry I barely know this stretch of canal, so can only go on the guides).

 

Additionally there is a new modern (un-numbered ?) bridge just south of bridge 30, that is clearly the result of a new road scheme.

 

So, if you can believe Nicholson's, I'd say on the whole summit two have gone, and two have arrived in about the last 40 years ?

 

Do the same exercise around Milton Keynes, though, and you would get a massively different story!

Edited June 29, 2010 by alan_fincher

[BlueStringPudding]

A thought that's often gone through my mind, too ...

 

Me three!

[Pluto]

Contour canals were built as such to keep the cost down - it has little to do with the quality of engineers at the time. Cuttings were just too expensive, and embankments took too long to settle to form a solid bank on which a canal could be placed. British canals tended to have been built by private money, with those of the 1760s and 1770s financed by a new rising merchant and mill owning class. Canals were of secondary importance to them, their individual businesses being in need of most of their money. Consequently, early canals were built on the cheap. By the 1790s and the Canal Mania, purely financial investors considered canals as the main place for their money, so more grandiose schemes came to fruition. It was these canals, despite their better engineering, that were less successful because there was no real overriding economic need for them.

 

On bridge numbers, all canal bridges were renumbered by BW sometime around 1960. All canal bridges were identified at this time, with those which BW had to maintain receiving a number, and those maintained by other bodies being given the number of the previous BW bridge on that canal plus a letter. For example, the first BW bridge on the L&LC is the change line bridge at Bootle which is No.1, with the bridges between there and the canal's terminus having letters and no number, as there is no BW maintained bridge between Bootle and the terminus.

[Athy]

If BW renumbered all canal bridges at that time, how come they forgot the B'ham & Fazeley, whose bridges retain names, not numbers, to this day?

[RLWP]

If BW renumbered all canal bridges at that time, how come they forgot the B'ham & Fazeley, whose bridges retain names, not numbers, to this day?

 

BCN bridges have names not numbers. IIRC that part of the B&F was completed by the BCN

 

Richard

 

So clearly BW renumbering all of the bridges is incorrect

[Pluto]

BCN bridges have names not numbers. IIRC that part of the B&F was completed by the BCN

 

Richard

 

So clearly BW renumbering all of the bridges is incorrect

Sorry, I don't recognise those ditches as canals as you can't get L&LC short boats along them.

 

There was a national scheme to identify all bridges which were the responsibility of BW and their condition circa 1960, and you can find the detailed listings in several archives. Following this, the bridges don't seem to have been numbered on some canals, and perhaps it was a BW regional decision. The L&LC used names for bridges up until this time, and then had bridge numbers introduced. I still prefer to use bridge names and try to look blank when people quote numbers. I'll have to have a look at Nicholsons to work out which canals use the BW numbering system, rather than that of former canal companies.

[RLWP]

Sorry, I don't recognise those ditches as canals as you can't get L&LC short boats along them.

<snip>

 

Can't fit a Hampton over the L&L either. Shame they built the locks so small

 

Richard