The Canal History
The Rochdale canal is 32 miles long and connects Manchester on the west side of the Pennine Hills and Sowerby Bridge on the east side.
The Rochdale Canal was completed in 1804 and is one of three canals that cross the Pennine hills. This is the only one that doesn’t use tunnels. In addition it was a broad canal with bridges and locks that allowed boats of 14 feet width to pass through.
The one downside of not using tunnels is that it originally had 92 locks. These days two of them have been combined into one deep lock.
Competition from railways and roads subsequently led to a decline in goods being carried and by 1937 the only section left in operation was at the Manchester end of the canal.
In 1965 there was talk of abandoning the canal but by this time leisure boating had become very popular in the UK and there was a campaign to keep it open. Work was started and the canal slowly re-opened in a number of different stages. The whole length finally reopened in September 2007.
All the locks on the canal have a standard length of 72 feet (22 metres).
Details of the bridge
This bridge is known as Todmorden Changeline bridge and was originally built in 1798 by Jessop and Crossley, the date that the part of the canal between Sowerby Bridge and Rochdal was opened, earlier than some other parts of the canal.
It is situated very close to lock 19. A lock always forms the narrowest part of the canal and so building the bridge near the lock makes it smaller and cheaper to build.
The bridge has been widened twice, once in 1864 and once in the 1920’s. It was during the 1864 widening that the date was added to the bridge.
The bridge was originally a stone arch bridge that carried the main road out of Todmorden. Also at this point the tow path switched sides of the canal and the bridge was used as a changeline or roving bridge.
The design of the bridge allows for the horses that towed the original canal boats to cross over to the other side of the canal.
In the case of this bridge there is one arch to allow the canal boats through and a second smaller one that allows pedestrians and horses to pass under the bridge.
The horse can be led under the canal and then across the bridge to the other side of the canal without having to actually cross over the top of the bridge.
See this Wikipedia page for a clearer description of
changeline bridges.
When the bridge was widened in 1864 it was extended over the arch on the side furthest away from the lock. A cast iron parapet was added to prevent anything falling into the canal and the date of 1864 placed on the side of it.
When the bridge was altered in the 1920s to accommodate increased road traffic the bridge was widened at the other side. Because nearby lock 19 was so close to the bridge there was no room for the traditional swinging lock gates to be left as they were. A rare guillotine type of gate was installed with a vertical lifting mechanism to reduce the space taken by them.
See the following way mark for fuller details of the history of this rare guillotine lock.
WMEQC1
The date is only visible from the canal on the eastern side. The co-ordinates were taken on the northern side of the bridge from the tow path. The date can also be seen from the other side of the canal on Fielden Wharf that was used to load and unload goods.