Arch Bridge 29 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 an English Heritage Grade II Listed Building link with the following text "Canal roving bridge: c1830 by William Crosley for the Macclesfield Canal Company. Hammer-dressed buff sandstone. Horseshoe elliptical arch with a prominent keystone, has a chamfered coping at road level supporting a plain parapet with a rounded coping joined by iron staples. The bridge ends in square pilasters. The north-east corner has a curving cobbled ramp between walls with rounded copings, which takes the towpath over the bridge and down a straight ramp at the north-west corner, with a wall along the canal side."

The design of the ramps on the roving bridge allowed horses to cross over the from one side of the canal whilst still towing the canal boat and without unhitching the rope.

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.: Macclesfield Canal Towpath and Clark Lane Water or other terrain spanned: The Macclesfield Canal Architect/Builder: William Crosley Construction Date: 1830

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