Black Pit Canal Aqueduct – Hebden Bridge, UK - Ancient Aqueducts on Waymarking.com

The Canal History
The Rochdale Canal was completed in 1804 and is one of three canals that cross the Pennine hills. This is the only one that doesn’t use tunnels. In addition it was a broad canal with bridges and locks that allowed boats of 14 feet width to pass through.

The one downside of not using tunnels is that it originally had 92 locks. These days two of them have been combined into one deep lock.

Competition from railways and roads subsequently led to a decline in goods being carried and by 1937 the only section left in operation was at the Manchester end of the canal.

In 1965 there was talk of abandoning the canal but by this time leisure boating had become very popular in the UK and there was a campaign to keep it open. Work was started and the canal slowly re-opened in a number of different stages. The whole length finally reopened in September 2007.

All the locks on the canal have a standard length of 72 feet (22 metres).

Details of the Aqueduct
The aqueduct was completed in 1797 by W. Jessop and W. Crossley engineers. As it crosses the Pennine hills the canal follows a fairly narrow valley and shares the valley bottom, with a main trunk road, a railway and the river Calder.

At this point the valley is wider and the canal passes through the town of Hebden Bridge. The River Calder is also wider at this point, because it has a confluence with Hebden Water and the canal crosses it here by the use of this 150 feet long aqueduct. It is immediately next to a lock with attached footbridge to give access to the town from the tow path. waymark WMEPTC

This aqueduct was made a Grade II listed building by English Heritage in 1984 before the canal was restored, reference number 1230245. It describes the aqueduct as having 4 segmental arches with keystones and bull nosed breakwaters.

There is not any easy access to the river banks and so it is difficult to get any photographs from below the level of the canal to easily see the arches. Canals normally only have foot paths along one side of them, but over the aqueduct there is a foot path along both sides.

The best view of the aqueduct is at the point where the path leaves the aqueduct on the opposite side to the tow path.

Related website: [Web Link] When was it built?: 01/01/1797

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Date Logged Log User Rating   10/28/2012 hulletteers visited it