Bridge 195 On Leeds Liverpool Canal – Riddlesden, UK - Moving Bridges on Waymarking.com

The canal is 127.25 miles long and flows from the inland woollen town of Leeds to the coastal sea port of Liverpool, crossing the Pennines along the way. Work on the canal started in 1770 and built in a number of sections and was finally completed in 1816.

The canal is no longer operational for commercial traffic but is popular with leisure boaters.

This steel counterweight swing bridge is also known as Booths bridge and was built to give access to farm fields.

The Moveable Bridges of Britain website tells us “John Powell reports that the old timber bridge was replaced by a counterweighted steel swing bridge probably around 1980.

John comments that the sludge deposited in the tail well indicates the way that the water level can vary, causing flooding of the well and depositing debris around the cannon-ball pintle, very often requiring high pressure water hoses to free the bearings to avoid an expensive deck-lifting operation.”

The bridge is always locked in position across the canal and boat owners carry the anti-vandal key to unlock the bridge when they wish to pass along the canal.

It is manually operated with a simple lever arm to push and pull the bridge into position.

A sign next to the push arm has the following operating instructions.

Bridge 195,
Booths
Swing Bridge

To open bridge
Use handcuff key to unlock anti-vandal
locking mechanism
Use push arm to fully open bridge

To close bridge
Use push arm to close bridge fully
Relock anti-vandal lock mechanism

Please ensure bridge
is not left unlocked

Bridge Type: Swing Bridge Span: 40 feet over a clear waterway width of 17 ft 6 inches. Pedestrian Traffic: yes Bicycle Traffic: yes Vehicular Traffic: yes Railway Traffic: no Built: Not listed

Visit Instructions:
Take a picture of the bridge and record the exact coordinates where the picture was taken.

Recent Visits/Logs:

There are no logs for this waymark yet.