Trent and Mersey Canal
| Trent and Mersey Canal | |
|---|---|
 Map of the canal (red) from the time of the project stage |
|
| location | North West England |
| length | 150 km |
| Built | 1777 |
| class | Narrowboat Canal |
| Beginning | River Trent at Derwent Mouth |
| The End | Bridgewater Canal |
| Descent structures | 76 |
| Outstanding structures | Anderton boat lift |
| Responsible WSD | Canal & River Trust |
The Trent and Mersey Canal (abbreviation: T&M ) is a 150 km long shipping canal in England . It was opened in 1777 and connects the River Trent , which forms the Humber east of Kingston upon Hull with the Ouse , with the north-west industrial area around Liverpool at the mouth of the Mersey in the Irish Sea . Whether its length and importance it is also called the Great Trunk ( Big tribe called channel) although he mostly only for small boats ( narrowboats is designed). Only east of Burton-upon-Trent can barges and boats with a width of up to 14 feet (4.27 meters) navigate the canal.
course
The canal runs through the East Midlands , West Midlands and North West England regions . It is connected to the Mersey via the Bridgewater Canal , which was opened in 1761 and which it meets at Preston Brook in the county of Cheshire . The Harecastle Tunnel divides the canal into a western and an eastern section.
Western section
The Trent and Mersey Canal merges end-to-end at Preston Brook into the Bridgewater Canal, which runs parallel to the River Mersey in a north-easterly direction to Manchester . Immediately south of the crossing, it runs through the Preston Brook tunnel. Two more, shorter tunnels follow at Saltersford and Barnton . In Anderton near Northwich the most notable structure of the channel that follows boat lift Anderton ( English Anderton Boat Lift ) connecting the channel with the River Weaver connects the vessel connection to estuary produces the Mersey where Liverpool located.
The next important stopover after Anderton is Middlewich , where a 47 meter long branch canal called Wardle Canal connects to the Shropshire Union Canal .
South of Middlewich, the canal rises above numerous locks from the Cheshire plain and reaches the apex position at Red Bull . Here a connecting canal called Hall Green Branch branches off to the Macclesfield Canal. This is followed by the Harecastle tunnel.
Eastern section
The other end of the Harecastle tunnel is already on the outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent . The canal now crosses the city. In the Etruria district , a connecting canal branches off, this leads to the Caldon Canal .
After Etruria, the apex posture ends at lock no. 40 Stoke Top Lock . The canal now runs through rural areas again and soon reaches the valley of the River Trent.
At Haywood Junction , often also called Great Haywood Junction , the Staffordshire-Worcestershire Canal, also built by James Brindley as part of the Grand Cross Plan, meets the Trent and Mersey Canal. This establishes the connection to the River Severn , the third of the four great rivers.
The Coventry Canal branches off in Fradley Junction and connects to the city of the same name and, via a few other branches, most of the southern English canal network.
From Burton-upon-Trent the canal runs parallel to the Trent. In Swarkestone , the Derby Canal was connected from 1796 to 1817 . The canal ends in Derwent Mouth and the shipping route continues on the Trent.
history
Permission to build the canal was granted by the British Parliament in 1766. After almost ten years of construction, it was opened in 1777.
The idea for the Trent and Mersey Canal came from canal engineer James Brindley, the builder of the Bridgewater Canal. He planned to connect the four great rivers of England, Mersey, Trent, Severn and Thames by navigable canals ( Grand Cross ), with the Trent and Mersey Canal being the backbone ( The Grand Trunk ) of this canal network. After parliament had given its approval, the groundbreaking ceremony at Middleport took place in July 1766 . This groundbreaking ceremony was carried out by one of the most important sponsors of the project, the industrialist Josiah Wedgwood , who hoped that the canal would significantly improve the sales and delivery opportunities for the Wedgwood porcelain factory he founded in Stoke-on-Trent in 1759 . Not quite eleven years later, the construction of the canal with a total of 76 locks and five canal tunnels was completed.
The competitive behavior of the English canal companies impaired the optimal use of the entire network. The Trent and Mersey Canal Society had tried to prevent the Derby Canal from being built. After it was connected in 1796, they charged such high tolls for the crossing that it was hardly used and thus uneconomical for the Derby Canal Society, which is why the connection between the two canals was cut in 1817.
The Harecastle tunnel planned by Brindley himself turned out to be a bottleneck. Therefore, from 1824, a second tunnel was built in parallel under the direction of Thomas Telford.
On January 15, 1847, the recently founded North Staffordshire Railway Company took over the canal.
Unlike many other canals in the UK, the Trent and Mersey Canal has never been closed. Nowadays, however, it is used almost exclusively for leisure purposes, freight traffic no longer takes place. However, there is currently no longer a direct connection to the River Mersey, as the lock staircase that led from the Bridgewater Canal to the river was shut down in the 1960s.
