page_title: Shrewsbury Canal
section_title: Infrastructure
hierarchical_section_title: Shrewsbury Canal / History / Infrastructure
caption_attribution_description: English: The Shrewsbury Canal at Newport
context_page_description: The Shrewsbury Canal was a canal in Shropshire, England. Authorised in 1793, the main line from Trench to Shrewsbury was fully open by 1797, but it remained isolated from the rest of the canal network until 1835, when the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal built the Newport Branch from Norbury Junction to a new junction with the Shrewsbury Canal at Wappenshall. After ownership passed to a series of railway companies, the canal was officially abandoned in 1944; many sections have disappeared, though some bridges and other structures can still be found. There is an active campaign to preserve the remnants of the canal and to restore the Norbury to Shrewsbury line to navigation.
context_section_description: One of Telford's first tasks was to build Longdon-on-Tern Aqueduct as a rebuild of a stone aqueduct over the River Tern at Longdon-on-Tern which had been built by Clowes but swept away by floods in February 1795. Telford's stonemason instincts initially led him to consider replacing the original structure with another stone-built aqueduct, but the heavy involvement of iron-masters in the Shrewsbury Canal Company, notably William Reynolds, led him to reconsider. Instead, it was rebuilt using a 62-yard (57 m) cast iron trough cast in sections at Reynolds' Ketley ironworks and bolted together in 1796. The main trough was 7 ft 6 in (2.29 m) wide and 4 ft 6 in (1.37 m) deep, with a narrower trough to one side which formed the towpath. The aqueduct was the world's first large-scale iron navigable aqueduct, though it was narrowly predated by a much smaller 44-foot-long (13 m) structure on the Derby Canal built by Benjamin Outram. The aqueduct still stands today, though it is isolated in the middle of a field. This successful use of an iron trough to contain the water of a navigable aqueduct casts the Tern aqueduct in the role of Telford's prototype for the much longer Pontcysyllte Aqueduct on the Llangollen Canal, where he mounted the iron trough on high masonry arches.
  The Shrewsbury Canal was finally finished in 1797, being 17 miles (27 km) long, with 11 locks. At Trench an inclined plane was built, which was 223 yards (204 m) long and raised boats 75 feet (23 m) up to the Wombridge Canal, from where they could travel via the Shropshire Canal southwards to the River Severn at Coalport. The plane consisted of twin railway tracks, each of which held a cradle. Boats would be floated onto the cradles, which had larger wheels at the back to keep the boat level. A third set of wheels were mounted at the front, which ran on extra rails in the dock, to prevent the cradle tipping forwards as it ran over the top cill. The plane opened in 1794, and although it was partially counterbalanced, with loaded boats going down the plane pulling empty boats up, a steam engine was also provided, to pull the boats over the top cill. This and the rails were provided by Reynolds' Coalbrookdale Company. In 1840 the rails were replaced with edge rails, allowing the use of conventional flanged wheels on the cradles, and the engine was replaced in 1842, with a high pressure Cornish engine, again ordered from the Coalbrookdale Company. The plane continued to be used until 1921, making it the last operational plane in Britain.
  The canal included a 970-yard (890 m) tunnel at Berwick, which was 10 feet (3.0 m) wide, but included a wooden towpath, supported by bearers which were attached to the wall. Clowes designed the tunnel, but the addition of a towpath was suggested by Reynolds. The towpath lasted until 1819, when it was removed. By 1904, there was a white line painted in the middle of the tunnel, and if boats travelling in opposite directions met in the tunnel, the one which had passed the mark had right of way.
caption: The canal in Newport
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