Ffrwd Branch of the Ellesmere Canal

[Heartland]

This branch was a detached section of the Ellesmere Canal and built to serve the needs of Richard Kirk, coal mine owner, who also was a canal committee member. Despite written sources stating that it was not finished, canal company record mention that a 3 mile section was.

 

Perhaps it deserves an improved footnote in history

 

Ray Shill

Edited February 19, 2016 by Heartland

[Graham Davis]

Ray.

How about some more details?

Where?

When?

How?

Why?

[Derek R.]

Some tips on how to pronounce the names would be helpful too.

[Alan de Enfield]

Pronounced FROOD

 

We used to own the land on to which the Ffrwd branch ran, and the land on which the mine sat.

 

It was tremendously overgrown but was still a wide 'saucer' shaped 'ditch' running for a couple of miles from the mine to what was apparently a 'winding hole' below Windy Hill.My understanding was (is) that it was never actually connected.

 

The local railway (I think from Brymbo - pronounced BRUMBO) cut thru the canal as it went past our boundary.

 

We also owned the land on which sat the Ffrwd ironworks and there still remains parts of the chimneys and some buildings.

 

Prior to our purchase one of the building was used as a slaughter house for horses and the meat supplied Chester Zoo for he 'big cats'

 

I did a lot of research on the area and the mine as it was one of the biggest and deepest mine of its time and was only closed when a deputy mine manager decided to give the pit ponies a day-off (Bank holiday), bring them to the surface and then switch of the ventilation fans.

 

A fire resulted and although the mine did re-open it never got back to 'proper production' and closed down.

 

We were fortunate enough to discover the old (19th Century) coal storage yard when doing some excavation, we extracted (with the necessary planning permission) some 5,000+ tons of coal which we sold to the local cement works.

[Alan de Enfield]

Further information on the canal and some pictures taken across our fields can be found here :

 

www.plaskynastoncanalgroup.org/app/.../Ffrwd+Canal+by+P+Brown.pdf

[RLWP]

 

Further information on the canal and some pictures taken across our fields can be found here :

 

www.plaskynastoncanalgroup.org/app/.../Ffrwd+Canal+by+P+Brown.pdf

 

 

 

No it can't:

 

 

 

Sorry, this page cannot be accessed at this time (Error 500)

 

 

Richard

[Alan de Enfield]

Well - you are 'right'

 

I have a 3 page Pdf on the canal. if anyone can tell me how to post a Pdf I'll give it a go

[Alan de Enfield]

The location is here ( use postcode LL12 9TP)

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.0869681,-3.0429363,17z?hl=en

 

Find Furnace Road ( hint - the road to the blast furnace), it like a balloon on a stick

 

Several buildings, then a footpath going from the 'balloon' up the hill, past the mine shaft.

The old canal that is still occasionally in water is shown as a blue squiggle

 

Zoom out and you have the context for the location

Edited February 19, 2016 by Alan de Enfield

[BruceinSanity]

Well - you are 'right'

 

I have a 3 page Pdf on the canal. if anyone can tell me how to post a Pdf I'll give it a go

Just the same way as photos choose " More reply options" and then the "Choose file" button. Finally, when you've selected the file, hit "Attach this file".

[Alan de Enfield]

Lets see if it works :

 

The Ffrwd Canal

Ffrwd Canal by P Brown.pdf

[RLWP]

Well - you are 'right'

 

I have a 3 page Pdf on the canal. if anyone can tell me how to post a Pdf I'll give it a go

What you did is right, I think the address has got broken. It has got /.../ in the middle where there should be a bit of the address

 

Richard

[Pluto]

This is one of the mines that used to be worked at Brymbo, though I am not sure which one.

 

I used to go train spotting there as the iron ore trains climbing up from Wrexham were worth waiting for.

[Alan de Enfield]

When we were excavating the coal yard we came across 'miles' of narrow gauge track and saddles buried in the spoil heap - weighed it all in for scrap.

 

Apparently one of the horizontal shafts that led from the mine pump to the ponds was used as an air raid shelter during WW2 for the local population (5 houses and a pub), a bomb was dropped a couple of 100 yards away by a German bomber on his way to Liverpool - he decided to dump and run for home.

Despite being shown its approximate location I never did find it.

 

Many of the locals were born, raised and still in the area 70-80 years later.

[Derek R.]

Thanks for the pronunciations. Lovely countryside thereabouts.

[Alan de Enfield]

Thanks for the pronunciations. Lovely countryside thereabouts.

 

Croeso i ti (you are welcome)

[Pluto]

Looking at the early 6inch OS maps for the area - the first is 1874http://maps.nls.uk/view/102342381 - it is difficult to identify the canal's remains, but there is The Boat House at Ffos-y-go.

[magpie patrick]

For those less familiar with the generality of the history of what is now known as the Llangollen canal, the Ffrwd branch would have come off the originally intended line of the Ellesmere Canal. The end product of the Ellesemere Canal's endeavours bore remarkably little resemblance to their intentions to the extent that the only bit of the "main line" to Llangollen that was intended to be the main line of the original is between Trevor and Frankton, and the Ellesmere Canal Co regarded even this length as a branch off their operational main line

 

The original chester- shrewsbury line would have connected Trevor/Ruabon directly to Chester, followed the present day route to Frankton, down Frankton Locks and then down the Weston Branch which should have extended to Shrewsbury but instead petered out at Weston Lullingfields.

 

Did the Ffrwd Branch ever operate, or was it one of those "partly built but not opened"?

[Alan de Enfield]

 

 

Did the Ffrwd Branch ever operate, or was it one of those "partly built but not opened"?

 

My very limited research 20 years ago indicated it was only a couple of miles long and never connected.

[Heartland]

Sorry,

 

Working Caravan Show, but yes the Peter Brown article does give a lot of information, but more deserves to be written about this waterway that WAS completed, but evidently had a relatively short life. As planned it was part of a branch of the main line that was intended to run from Pontcysyllte to Chester and the Mersey.

 

The length was some 3 miles and traffic coal and perhaps other minerals.

 

Ray Shill

[magpie patrick]

By no stretch of any imagination was the Ffrwd branch "complete" in the way that most historians mean - it was part of an incompleted scheme and never connected to the canal at Pontcysllyte or Chester, the main line from which it was a branch

 

From what you say though Ray it did carry some local trade, something I had often wondered - any details? Also, does anyone know why they built the branch first? Reasons elsewhere have been parliamentary obligation (Dorset and Somerset Nettlebridge Branch) and ready local market (Tiverton branch of Grand Western) - in both those cases the main line then didn't get built as envisaged

[Heartland]

I believe it did carry some trade, coal , but from which mines. It did not reach Poolsmouth, the junction with the main line, but evidently had a function providing coal to a roadside location. Later am ironworks was established at Frwyd, which in some ways is a a complication. Did this ironworks also have need of the canal?

[Heartland]

I have had various conversations with Peter Brown on this isolated stretch of waterway and looking into the canal records at Kew the short section of canal was evidently open for coal traffic from construction until 1820 at least when Richard Kirk purchased it from the Ellesmere & Chester Companies. The length open was from a variety of coal shafts near Frywd towards a turnpike road (Wrexham- Chester). Part is traceable on the early Ordnance Survey (c1834) and it would be useful to see if was on the Tithe map. When John Thompson built the Frywd Ironworks (1826-7), it would have been beside the water way. The Wrexham Mold & Connah's Quay mineral branch to the ironworks obliterated a section of the canal.

[Alan de Enfield]

As I mentioned previously we owned much of the 'Frood valley' (original spelling), including the site of the old steel works, the coal mine and the land up to the edge of the canal.

 

The canal runs (ran) half way up the hillside (following the contour) and was adjacent to the main mine shaft, the steel and brick works were on level ground virtually at the bottom of the valley.

 

There is considerable history of the Frood (Ffrwd) mentioned in a book "The Mines of Flintshire", which is available from Wrexham library. Wrexham library also holds (well they did 15 years ago) all of the original plans and maps of the site, including all of the various underground levels and workings - it makes very interesting reading.

 

We had a 'depression' develop in one of the fields and had to call out the 'NCB' (there is still a bit of it left which is responsible for making safe old workings) they brought a drilling rig & drilled down into the depression but it was quite safe.

 

We levelled some of the land to make a new paddock for the horses and cam across the old coal storage yard - we managed to get temporary (one month) planning permission and excavated over 20,000 tonnes of coal which we sold to the Cement works near Chester.

 

There is also a horizontal tunnel that housed the link between the Steam engine (the huge water, brick lined, storage tank is still there) and the lifting gear. This shaft was used as an air raid shelter during the 2nd world war (many stories from one of the very elderly 'locals') A 'Jerry' bomber got a bit worried on the way to Liverpool and dumped his load (of bombs) in the field adjacent to the 'shelter' and everyone survived.

 

Our neighbours 'up the valley' never had their septic tank emptied, which seemed strange until on discussion with them we found that their 'pipes' ran into one of the old 'capped off' shafts - I guess they will never fill that.

 

After the war some of the buildings (still on site) were used as stables (we still used as stables) for holding horses that were on the way to the abattoir to provide meat to the animals at Chester Zoo. The abattoir was in fact one of the building in the old brick works adjacent to the partly dilapidated chimneys (still there when we left)

 

Happy days !!!

[Heartland]

Continuing the investigation of the Ffrywd Canal.The course appears to have crossed the road by the original Ffrwyd Inn (not the present one by the listed bridge) and then turned towards Nant. Looking at the site from the footpath there is a coal shaft (circular, brick) near that path behind the farm and then a section of what appears to be the basin.

 

The recently published Welsh Tithe maps do show much of the canal as it passed the ironworks site. They also mark a rectangular building on the bed of the canal called the engine, then there is a gap and the canal resumes heading northwards. Colliery engine information is often recorded in the apportionment and indeed the same section of the map has engines identified in this manner. However to specifically name a structure as "engine" may imply another use. If it was a haulage engine for pulling up boats along an incline, for example, would make a plausible explanation. May be Alan de Enfield with his local knowledge comment on the fact that there may been a change of level to reach another part of the canal, that continued to Nant where there were several coal shafts.

 

Ray Shill

[wrexham lass]

Some history, compiled for a research project...

 

Ffrwd is a small village or hamlet North West of Wrexham, near Cefn-y-bedd.
The area was very industrial, with coal mines, brick works, iron works and quarries.

A canal (The Ellesmere Canal) was planned to run from a place on the River Mersey near Whitby, to near Shrewsbury on the River Severn. This canal would pass through Chester, pass very near to Wrexham (at Poolmouth), and pass by the industrial areas around Ruabon on its way south. A branch was to run from Poolmouth to a large reservoir at Coed Talon, via a flight of locks at Ffrwd.

This canal was not built as planned, largely due to the inflation in the economy after the Napolionic wars causing construction costs to increase substantially. What was built is now known as the Llangollen Canal, and part of the Shropshire Union Canal. (The place near Whitby is now known as Ellesmere Port.) A part of the branch was also built at Ffrwd, and remains can be found, despite part of the canal being built over by a railway, which is now also derelict and lifted. (The Great Central Railway Westminster Colliery Branch, which also served Ffrwd Ironworks.)


This is a bit like a guided trip, but you need to move on the Google Map to follow it...

Summerhill, Wales
https://maps.app.goo.gl/jjx2Zg6jJPocCNwv7

The Image in the link is the end nearest Gwersyllt. There was approximately 2 1/3 Miles of canal actually built.

There used to be a bridge over the canal at this point, the canal continuing behind the "camera" to a wharf on the outskirts of Gwersyllt.

Most of this is now built over, but there is a road that seems to follow the canal line in part.

In front of the "Camera", the canal continues to Sydallt, where it is at the bottom of the gardens in Tan Yr Allt, before just about disappearing under houses in Bronallt.

(You can follow the canal "from the air" on the map.)

The WM & CQ branch climbed up from the railway at Sydallt, though it too seems to have been built over. (Railway Terrace.)

I would say that the WM & CQ Ffrwd Branch was alongside the road Bronallt.

The field boundary hedge and trees follows the canal and railway's line as it swings around the hill. The railway here cut through the canal, as the canal turned sharper than the railway.

The railway ended up on the "outside" of the canal bend.

The canal remains re-appear and curve around to go into the trees, where the railway comes on top of the canal.

A cutting and road overbridge have gone on a branch off the WM & C Q railway to Ffos Y Go colliery. The remains of the abutment walls can be found alongside the road. (At a "dog leg" in the Sydallt to Ffrwd road.)

The railway remains on top of the canal through to the site of an aqueduct by the Ffrwd Coaching Inn remains.

There are the remains of the abutments of girder bridges here, where the WM & C Q railway went over the GWR Ffrwd Ironworks branch, and the road.

A house labelled as "the Cottage" is the Level Crossing Keepers House where the GWR Branch crossed the road.

A new house is opposite. The gate is on the GWR line, and the abutments of the WM & CQ bridge over the GWR can be seen beyond.

The canal emerges from the side of the railway embankment on the other side of the bridge (aqueduct) and runs to the remains of the Yord Canal Basin. This was the end of the canal as built.

The canal would have continued, via a flight of locks, to a Reservoir at Coed Talon. This was the planned end of the canal.

The “other” end would have run to Poolmouth, outside Wrexham, where it would join the main line of the canal, running from the River Dee at Chester (opposite the present lock from the Chester Canal) climbing roughly on the line now occupied by the Railway, and continuing on via Ruabon to the Trefor end of the Pontcysllte Aqueduct.

I have found these sites interesting, they cover the history of the canal scheme that the Canal at Ffrwd would have been part of...

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Ellesmere_Canal

http://plaskynastoncanalgroup.org/canals/


Narrow boat magazine article ...

https://narrowboatmagazine.com/converted/43895/ffrwd_folly

 

Edited August 14, 2022 by wrexham lass
Broken links deleted