Stone Bridge 45 Over The Macclesfield Canal - Lyme Green, UK
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 53° 14.225 W 002° 07.624
30U E 558261 N 5899000
This single arch bridge known as Leek New Road Bridge carries London Road (A523) over the Macclesfield Canal.
Waymark Code: WMR0F6
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 04/23/2016
Views: 1
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.
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The Bridge
The bridge is a single arch stone bridge that straddles both the canal and the towpath. It is of a similar design to all such bridges built when the canal opened in 1830 except that it crosses the canal at an angle and the arch is skewed slightly.
At some point after the volume of traffic increased on the road a small modern footbridge has been built on the east side of the bridge for pedestrians.