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 Back to Top
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
Simialr 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!
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. The aqueduct was sited about a third of the way down the Little venice visitor moorings. The structure was a very low brick slung affair supporting a massive embankment. Its end was heralded in the early days of the canal when locals complained of the smell emanating from the Westbourne River. This now runs in a culvert far below the waters of Little Venice. And few know of the exact course of the Westbourne as it makes its way from Kilburn under Maida Vale, Shirland Road, Formosa Street, Blomfield Road, Delamere Terrace and Paddington before entering the Serpentine at Hyde Park
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
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? 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
The Regents canal is renowed for its three tunnels, and Maiden Lane and Macclesfield Bridges, and at first glance doesnt seem to have any aqueducts at all. There were none when it was first built because there are no embankments on any part of the canal. Basically the Regents Canal is one long continous cutting with no sections raised above ground. The canal's two 'aqueducts' came along later. The first is disguised as a footbridge. The Chalbert Street bridge in Regents Park over the canal carries the River Tyburn within its structure. There is an aqueduct over the railway where it enters Kings Cross station. This aqueduct over the railway at Kings Cross is of cast iron construction and crosses the Kings Cross station throat approach tunnels. The aqueduct was opened in 1852
This is a view of the Kings Cross aqueduct. Nothing to see in fact, but the railway lines pass just a few feet beneath the canal and so at this point cast iron plates were laid down to form an aqueduct, which is supported by the railway tunnel walls. Its an unusual aqueduct being buried entirely underground! The cast iron plates actually form the bottom of the canal at this point. The only parts of the aqueduct that can be seen are some cast iron ribs and part of the plates (depending on how much light enters the tunnels) as one travels out of the surburban platforms (9,10 and 11) Only the departures from these platforms go slowly enough to allow eagle eyed canallers to spot the aqueduct just inside the tunnel
Plaque at Maiden lane bridge - these days the road is known as York
Way, next to Kings cross station. To some York Way is well known
for having a disused tube station, which might reopen if inspired
enough by the re-development going on in the area!
The plaque reads: "First built in 1819 to carry Maiden Lane across the Regents Canal, it was widened and rebuilt in 1852 and 1923. In 1998 it was rebuilt to conform to Eurpoean Community legislation on minimum loading. parts of the original fabric have been re-used in deference to the site's history." Note the reference to 1852, this is when the area was affected by the building of the Great Northern railway into its new terminus at Kings Cross, work which affected the canal as well by neccesation of a need for an aqueduct over the railway
More to follow...