Concrete Bridge 121 - Bolton-le-Sands, UK
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 54° 05.980 W 002° 47.753
30U E 513348 N 5994629
This concrete single arch bridge carries the A6 Bypass over the Lancaster Canal and is also known as Town End Bridge.
Waymark Code: WMT00Y
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/31/2016
Views: 2
The A6 is one of the main historic north-south roads in England. It currently runs from Luton in Bedfordshire to Carlisle in Cumbria, although it formerly started at a junction with the A1 at Barnet. It is the fourth longest numbered road in Britain, behind only the A1, A38 and A30.
When the Lancaster Canal was built in 1797 most of the bridges were built to a standard plan. They were made of stone with a single arch carrying a single track road. Even to this day most of the bridges still carry single track roads.
The canal passes mainly through rural farmland but at this point the A6 used to carry traffic through the village of Bolton-le Sands to the coastal resort of Morecambe.
The volume of traffic on the A6 became too high for a single track road over the canal and so in the 1920s a bypass for Bolton-le-Sands was built. This wide concrete bridge was also built to replace the older narrow stone bridge.
The Lancaster Canal
"The Lancaster Canal is a canal in the north of England, originally planned to run from Westhoughton in Lancashire to Kendal in south Cumbria (then in Westmorland). The section around the crossing of the River Ribble was never completed, and much of the southern end leased to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, of which it is now generally considered part.
Of the canal north of Preston, only the section from Preston to Tewitfield near Carnforth in Lancashire is currently open to navigation for 42 miles (67.6 km.
The isolated northern part of the canal was finally connected to the rest of the English canal network in 2002 by the opening of the Ribble Link.
The remaining open part of the Lancaster Canal follows the same elevation contour on maps and is therefore free of locks."
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"The Millennium Ribble Link includes what was Great Britain's first inland waterway to be constructed in nearly 100 years when it was opened in July 2002, and was the first to be built for leisure purposes only, not commercial use. The 4-mile (6.4 km) link connects the once-isolated Lancaster Canal to the River Ribble. From the Ribble it is possible to reach the main navigable system via the River Douglas and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal's Rufford Branch subject to tides and weather conditions."
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