London's Canal Bridges and Aqueducts
The Royal Gunpowder Mills canal system
We start with bridges and aqueducts on disused canals in London. The Royal Gunpowder Mills complex in Waltham Abbey has a large canal system with plenty of bridges and aqueducts. Many of the bridges had a distinct shape and served as footbridges to connect the different parts of the Gunpowder Mills complex. Not all the canal bridges were of this style though. Some were brick built and some were wooden and some of rather strange character, such as the former footbridge which has trees now growing within it
The Royal Gunpowder Mills' aqueducts were some of the later cast iron examples in the country. At least two of these existed. They were built in the 1870's. Other aqueducts existed on the RGM and these were brick built structures instead
The Royal Gunpowder MIlls are a short walk from the Lee Navigation at Waltham Abbey. They were once connected to the navigation in two ways - one via the Waltham Abbey arm and the other via the Powdermill cut. It is no longer possble to access the mills by boat
The Lee Navigation
A short distance from the mills is another aqueduct. Its on the Lee navigation itself and it is built in concrete. Its a very early example of a concrete aqueduct and it can be found adjacent to Aqueduct Lock, between Cheshunt and Broxbourne. The aqueduct is tagged onto the head of the lock, and it crosses a tributary of the River Lea, known as the Small River Lea, and a view of it is shown below. Another example of a similar arrangment is that at Yarningale Aquduct on the Southern Stratford canal
This is Ware bridge. The bus is an RT that operated between 1939 and 1979 (remember those mad scenes on the final route out of Barking bus garage?) The bridge carries the Ware coat of arms, which has a bit of history concerning the River Lea. During the plaque in London in 1665 the boatmen of Ware were brave enough to carry on taking grain and essentials down the Lea to the city to aid the ailing citizens. For this brave action the town recieved the freedom of the City of London from King Charles 2nd, and the coat of arms imortalises the freedom of the city and the long association the town has had with the River Lea. The river crossing at Ware is actually one of the oldest recorded in this country, there may have been a ford dating as far back as the Middle Stone Age, thats more than 5,000 years ago!
Further down the River Lea is this bridge. Its known as Ferry Bridge and is a short distance from the Lee Navigation at Tottenham locks. The bridge was opened in 1915 and it replaced the earlier Ferry bridge of 1760. The original bridge actually crossed the Barge river, since this was the only way before 1770 to get to Hertford. The Lee Navigation might have taken through traffic away from the original River Lea, but the newer Ferry Bridge continued to see occasional barge traffic until about the 1930's when major works undertaken by the Lee Conservancy were begun
To complement the theme that we began, with disused canals, here's a bridge that once spanned the Lee Navigation, is still used by everyday traffic but no longer has any waterway passing beneath it:
This is Narrow Street bridge just a stone's throw from Limehouse basin. It once crossed the tail of the old Limehouse (Lee Navigation) lock. When the Lee Navigation was diverted from Limehouse Church to Limehouse Basin, the lock and adjacent length of waterway into the Thames was made redundant. Its still possible to see some of the old alignment, now a water feature, and the lockkeepers' houses
On the Long Level
This view shows the Paddington Packet basin at Cowley. This was the place where the express passenger boats between here and Paddington were based. Although the service was advertised as linking Uxbridge and Paddington, in reality passengers had to walk from Uxbridge to Cowley, because otherwise the boats would have had to use Cowley lock and that woul d have somewhat 'cheated' the impressive timings that the Packet service claimed for a run to Paddington. The bridge was typical of many that led off a canal in that it had no towpath
There are three aqueducts on the Slough Arm. This branch of the Grand Union Canal runs westwards from Cowley Peachy Junction and is home to three cast iron aqueducts which pass over the Fray's River, the River Colne and Colne Brook. These were built to placate angry mill owners, ensuring the canal did not take water from those rivers and streams
One of the three Slough arm aqueducts. They are very low slung. This is the first one along the arm which crosses the Frays River
View of Slough arm aqueduct from the towpath looking towards Cowley Peachey junction
Similar to the one at Cowley lock, but even more obscure, is the aqueduct at Bulls Bridge. Few know of its existence. This is a view looking westwards across the aqueduct towards the Nestle factory at Hayes, and the railing along the towpath is the only indicator to the location of this aqueduct
Its extremely difficult to see the aqueduct itself because of foilage.This photograph was taken in the winter and just shows the arch of the Bulls bridge aqueduct. The view was taken from the footbridge adjacent to A312 Heathrow Link road and shows the canal, aqueduct and River Crane looking south
Of the six aqueducts on the long Cowley/Slough/Norwood/Camden level, the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union canal has a large aqueduct at Alperton over the North Circular Road. The present structure is the second one to be built. The original was opened in 1933 and the present in 1993. It crosses both the A403 North Circular Road and the River Brent
North Circular aqueduct at Alperton looking north west
North Circular aqueduct looking south east. It may come as a surprise to see that there is a footbridge built into the structure!
View of the old Alperton aqueduct from the forties
The Paddington Arm has only ever had one aqueduct to its credit. Before the North Circular Aqueduct came into being, there was the Kilburn Aqueduct. This structure was part of the original canal into Paddington and it crossed the Westbourne Valley just to the west of Little Venice. Its difficult to envisage an aqueduct having existed here, but a careful look around will reveal that a substantial approach embanakment still exists. Constant development since Victorian times has ensured that the perspective appears to be that the canal and local terrain are on a level, but in fact the canal actually crosses the valley at a very high elevation as the images show. For more on the Kilburn Aqueuduct see the page on the history of Paddington & its canals
The Kilburn embankment by Lord Hills bridge, Little Venice. A view looking up the valley towards the canal with a boat on a mooring (centre of picture). It is quite clear from this picture that the Paddington Arm sits on a substantial embankment on the stretch into Little Venice. The approximate location of Kilburn Aqueduct would have been around 45 yards eastwards of this photograph, which approximates to being a third of the way along the Little Venice visitor moorings
Note: I always thought the aqueduct was slightly to the east of this point as shown on old maps. It does appear that the aqueduct could have been adjacent to the site of the present Lord Hills Bridge, however, much landscaping and remodeling of the area especially in regards to the council estate along Delamere Terrace has re-shaped the land elevations, so for the moment the actual location of Kilburn Aqueduct is open to debate
Here are a couple of pictures of the aqueduct itself. I'm sure many people think the Kilburn Aqueduct doesn't exist but it certainly does - it still there - and these excellent view of the aqueduct come from the remarkable set of photographs by Mr John Doe, to whom the credits and copyright are acknowledged under Flickr's creative Commons License. Mr John Doe's main page and profile is here at Flickr
Views of Kilburn Aqueduct, still in existence under the canal @ Little Venice. The person is shining their torch onto the brickwork that constitutes the southern face of the aqueduct. In both pictures the distinctive shape of the structure can be seen
Off the Long Level
Off the main Paddington/Cowley level, aquedutcs seem to be few and far between. Apart from Aqueduct lock are there any others? There's the low slung aqueduct at the head of Denham lock, north of Uxbridge. Possibly the most famous London aqueudct/bridge of all, is the one at Norwood where the canal crosses a railway, and is in turn crossed by a road. This is known as Three Bridges and its certainly a most unusual combination of crossings, that is found nowhere else on the canal system. It used to be a popular location for lovers in the wartime, people used to come up from Heston and rendezvous here
Again like somel of the other aqueducts on the London canals, this was not on any of the original plans. It was built when the Great Western railway established a branch off its main line at Southall to Brentford. The engineer was of course Brunel, and some say he was having a bit of a laugh when he decided to build a crossing invovling three different transport modes. The people who provided the ironwork were a company based in the City of London and the plaque showing their name on the bridge is shown below:
Its not easy to see the aqueduct itself, but here's a partial view from the road parapet
Here's a view looking down to the railway. Hanwell top lock and cottage can be seen in the distance.
As can be seen, the line to Brentford was built to double track width, but nowadays its just a single line working. The route is truncated well short of the original terminus at Brentford High Street, but it still serves a refuse depot to the north of the A4 parallel to the canal between Boston Manor (Piccadilly line) bridge and Clitheroes lock.
On the same canal route (the Grand Union's mainline) but off the Paddington level at Cowley lock is what can be said to be the only bridge in the entire London region without a towpath on a main canal. Its location immediately above Cowley lock is a bit of a bottleneck actually because it constrains the number of boats that can be ably held above the lock whilst waiting for passage as well as those wanting to use the sanitary station and water point. Here's a view of it below. Few will know, but Cowley bridge is actually similar to the early towpathless bridges that were found at the entrance to the original Paddington canal terminus of 1801
Towpathless Cowley bridge
Above and below: Two views of Denham Aqueduct. These were taken before the recent majorrepairs to the structure. As these pictures show it was in a very poor condition
