Arch Bridge 26 Over The Macclesfield Canal – Bollington, UK - Stone Bridges on Waymarking.com

The Macclesfield Canal
The Macclesfield Canal was one of the last narrow canals to be built, indeed, it was very nearly built as a railway! A variety of ideas were proposed and the present canal was approved by Act of Parliament in April 1826. The route of the canal was surveyed by Thomas Telford and construction was engineered by William Crosley. The completed canal was opened on 9th November 1831 at a cost of £320,000.

The route takes the canal from Marple Junction with the Peak Forest Canal in the north 26¼ miles to the stop lock at Hall Green near Kidsgrove passing along the side of the most westerly Pennine hills through High Lane, Higher Poynton, Bollington, Macclesfield and Congleton, all in Cheshire, and Kidsgrove in Staffordshire in the south. Nowadays we normally regard the last 1½ miles to Harding's Wood Junction with the Trent & Mersey Canal as a part of the Macclesfield Canal although it was built as a branch of the T&MC. link

The Bridge
This bridge is a Historic England Grade II Listed Building link with the following text "Canal bridge: C1830 by William Crosley for the Macclesfield Canal Company. Hammer-dressed buff sandstone. Built on an acute angle to canal so that arch is a broad horseshoe elliptical arch with the stones in the vault laid diagonally. Chamfered coping at road level and plain parapet with rounded coping ending in square pilasters. Ramp to south-west corner.

Because built on the skew, visually more attractive than the standard canal bridge."

The bridge is on a slight bend in the canal and the arch stones have grooves cut in them from where the tow ropes on the horse drawn boats rubbed against them.

Where any of the original bridges crossed the canal, it was always made narrower to reduce bridge building costs. Because of this many also act as places where stop planks can be inserted across the canal whenever it needs to be drained for maintenance. This bridge is one of them and there is a stock of stop planks next to the bridge.

Physical Location (city, county, etc.): Bollington, Cheshire Road, Highway, Street, etc.: Sugar Lane Water or other terrain spanned: The Macclesfield Canal Architect/Builder: William Crosley Construction Date: 1830

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Date Logged Log User Rating   07/19/2018 Alancache visited it