page_title: Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company
section_title: The Monmouthshire Canal Navigation
hierarchical_section_title: Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company / The Monmouthshire Canal Navigation
caption_attribution_description: English: System map of the Monmouthshire Canal, Wales, in 1799
context_page_description: The Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company was a canal and railway company that operated a canal and a network of railways in the Western Valley and Eastern Valley of Newport, Monmouthshire. It started as the Monmouthshire Canal Navigation and opened canals from Newport to Pontypool and to Crumlin from 1796. Numerous tramroads connected nearby pits and ironworks with the canal.
  After 1802 the company built a tramway from Nine Mile Point, west of Risca, to Newport, and an associated company, the Sirhowy Tramroad, connected from Tredegar. Steam locomotives were used from 1829. By 1850 pressure was mounting to modernise the line, and in 1848 an Act of Parliament authorised conversion to a modern railway, construction of a new railway from Newport to Pontypool, and a change of name for the Company to the Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company.
  The high volume of mineral activity in the area kept the Company in good financial health for many years, but it failed to keep abreast of competing developments, and faced with unforeseen major loss of business it sold the rights to operate its network to the Great Western Railway in 1875.
context_section_description: For centuries the mineral wealth of Monmouthshire had been exploited, especially in the manufacture of iron; the necessary raw materials were all at hand: coal, ironstone, limestone, and timber. This availability encouraged technical innovation, and this in turn led to considerable progress in the industry. The iron production took place some distance from the coast, and transport away to a point of use was exceedingly difficult and expensive.
  Industrialists in the area combined to finance the construction of a canal from Pontnewynydd, a little north-west of Pontypool, to Newport, and a second arm from near Crumlin, through Rogerstone to join the first arm of the canal at Crindau, close to Newport. Each arm of the canal was 11 miles in length. The canal was authorised by Act of Parliament in 1792, and the Act included permission to build connecting tramways or plateways (or alternatively "stone roads") to pits within seven miles of the canal, and to raise £120,000. The estimated cost was £106,000, and such was the enthusiasm for the scheme that the capital was all subscribed before the Act was passed.
  There was a considerable fall from the top of the canal to Newport: the Pontnewynydd arm descended 447 feet, using 42 locks; there were two tunnels. The Crumlin arm descended 358 feet to Crindau, and required 31 locks. Reservoirs had to be created at the heads of the canal to ensure a reliable water supply.
  The main arm of the canal opened in 1796, and by this time tramroads had already been constructed in readiness connecting the furnaces of Trosnant, Blaendare and Blaenavon to the line of the canal. When the Crumlin arm was ready, corresponding tramroad connections led to it from Beaufort, Sorwy, Nantyglo and Aberbeeg. In fact, the numerous short tramroad connections exceeded in aggregate length the extent of the canal to which they led.
  Priestley described the route of the canal:
  This canal and its branches and railroads commence in the Usk River, not a great distance below the town of Newport, close to the termination of the Rumney and Sirhowey Railroads: passing on in a direction nearly full north and leaving Newport to the east, the canal extends by Pontypool to Pontnewynydd, a distance of more than seventeen miles and three-quarters. Near this place it connects with the Abergavenny and Brecknock Canal. In its course it passes Malpas opposite which at Crindau is a branch canal to Crumlin Bridge. At Court-y-Bella Farm at Risca and at Pillgwenlly it joins the Sirhowey Tramroad. From the Crumlin Bridge branch, there is a railroad to Beaufort ironworks; a branch to Sorwy furnace, another to Nant-y-Glo works and a third to the Sirhowey Railroad to Risca. Near Pontypool is a railway branch to Trosnant furnace and another to Blaen-Din works. From the Usk to Pontnewynydd in a distance of twelve miles and a half, there is a rise of 447 feet by the canal; in its railway continuation to Blaen-Din there is a rise of 610 feet in a distance of five miles and a quarter. From Crindau Farm to Crumlin Bridge the canal rises 358 feet in eleven miles; the railway from Crumlin Bridge to Beaufort rises 619 feet in ten miles; the Nant-y-Glo branch has a rise of 518 feet.
  The gauge of the tramroads was 3 ft 4in, and it was constructed of edge rails of a plain cross-section 2 inches wide at the head and ​2 ¹⁄₂ inches wide at the base, and three inches deep. The wagon wheels were double flanged, straddling the rail. Cast iron sleepers maintained the gauge, and these were supported on square wooden blocks laid on stone chippings. There were no passing places on the single line tramroads: empty wagons were manhandled off the track to allow loaded wagons to pass them.
  A supplementary Act of Parliament was secured on 30 May 1798 to allow for loading facilities at the ship berths in Newport. In April 1799 the whole project was said to be complete, and nearly 44,000 tons of material were conveyed in 1798 alone.
caption: The Monmouthshire Canal system
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