Monkland Canal
The Monkland Canal is a former waterway in Scotland . The 19-kilometer canal connected Sheepford at Airdrie with the Forth and Clyde Canal at Port Dundas north of Glasgow . The name of the canal comes from the former parish Old Monkland and New Monkland , which are now part of the North Lanarkshire Unitary Authority .
Construction of the canal began in 1770 under the supervision of James Watt and lasted until 1792. Locking was carried out with the then new technology of the rolling mountain , the Blackhill inclined elevator . The Monkland Canal became an important transport route for coal to Glasgow in the 19th century. In the 20th century it finally became unprofitable and in 1935 the traffic ceased. In the 1970s, the western part of the canal was filled in and part of the M8 Motorway was built over it . In the town of Coatbridge , some sections of the water-filled canal are still preserved.
literature
- Guthrie Hutton: Monkland. The Canal that made Money . R. Stenlake, Ochiltree 1993, ISBN 1-872074-28-6 , ( Lanarkshire heritage series ).
- Jean Lindsay: The Canals of Scotland . David & Charles, Newton Abbot 1968, ( The Canals of the British Isles ).
- From Sea To Sea: A History of the Scottish Lowland and Highland Canals , Glasgow 2005, ISBN 1-903238-94-3
