Bridge 67 Over The Shropshire Union Canal (Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal - Main Line) - Adderley, UK
Posted by: dtrebilc
N 52° 56.347 W 002° 29.486
30U E 534178 N 5865618
This single arch bridge over the Shropshire Union Canal (Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal - Main Line) is a combined roving bridge for the canal and an accommodation bridge for a nearby farm. It is known as Bettoncoppice Turnover Bridge.
Waymark Code: WMYTJG
Location: West Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 07/23/2018
Views: 1
The bridge is a Historic England Grade II Listed Building.
"Canal bridge. Circa 1830. Thomas Telford and Alexander Easton, engineers. Dressed red/grey sandstone with tooled dressings. Accommodation bridge combined with roving towpath bridge. Elliptical arch with voussoirs and flush keystone. Humped-back shape with chamfered string course and parapet with square end piers (to north only) and rounded coping. Slightly battered and curved abutments. The towpath part of the bridge is divided from the accommodation part by a stone wall and is approached by ramps from the south. Cast-iron corner posts on towpath side with grooves caused by rope haulage. C20 oval metal number plate to south.
This stretch of the canal was built as part of the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal (Act passed 1826, opened 1835) which was absorbed by the Ellesmere and Chester Canal in 1845 and eventually became part of the Shropshire Union in 1846.
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A roving or turnover bridge is a bridge over a canal constructed to allow a horse towing a boat to cross the canal when the towpath changes sides. This often involved unhitching the tow line, but on some canals, like this one, they were constructed so that there was no need to do this by placing the two ramps on the same side of the bridge which turned the horse through 360 degrees.
On this particular bridge there were also entrances to the bridge from farm fields at each end of the bridge, on one side of the separating wall on top of the bridge.
These days the accommodation part of the bridge is no longer used.