The Huddersfield Narrow Canal Bridge 101a – 2000 – Stalybridge, UK
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 53° 28.940 W 002° 03.471
30U E 562520 N 5926341
This bridge that carries Back Melbourne Street over the Huddersfield Narrow Canal was built in 2000 as part of restoration work on the canal.
Waymark Code: WMFW4J
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 12/06/2012
Views: 2
This canal is one of three that crosses the Pennine Hills and built to provide transport between Huddersfield in Yorkshire and Ashton-Under-Lyne in Lancashire.
Work started on it in 1794 and partly due to the need to construct the longest canal tunnel in the United Kingdom it was completed 17 years later in 1811.
Although in the early days the canal was profitable, competition from railways and roads meant that it had closed by 1944.
During the 1970s leisure boating in the U.K. had become popular and there were various campaigns to re-open canals that had lain derelict for a number of years.
Work on restoring this canal started in 1981 and was completed in 2001. In urban settings such as the centre of the town of Stalybridge parts of the canal had been totally filled in and built over. A number of bridges in Stalybridge were rebuilt using funding from the Millennium Commission Lottery Fund.
This bridge is actually a completely new one. At some time after the canal had been filled in a new road was laid across the canal. When the canal was reopened it was necessary to build this new bridge by excavating the canal and inserting a preformed concrete structure to carry the road and provide a channel for the canal.
The keystone on each side of the bridge has the year 2000 carved into it and on the west wall of the bridge is a lottery commission plaque. On the east wall is a blue plaque indicating the bridge was re-opened on 28th May 2001 by Frank Ruffley Tamesdes’s “Mr Canal The bridge is named Ruffley’ s Bridge in his honour.
The bridges along the canal are numbered from the start at Huddersfield. British Waterways made a decision that the bridges should retain their numbers from when the canal was first built. Any totally new bridges are assigned a letter after the nearest bridge number. This bridge was therefore given the number 101a.
Date built or dedicated as indicated on the date stone or plaque.: 2000
Date stone, plaque location.: Arch keystone on both sides of the bridge
Road, body of water, land feature, etc. that the bridge spans.: The Huddersfield Narrow Canal
Website (if available): [Web Link]
Parking (safe parking location): N 53° 28.934 W 002° 03.469
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