Winterstoke by L.T.C. Rolt

Author:L.T.C. Rolt [L. T. C. Rolt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571326037
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2015-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

IT WAS THE TIDINGS of the new railways in the north and the rumours of further railway schemes which roused the Proprietors of the Wendle Navigation and the Lobstock Canal from their lethargy. In the face of this threat to the monopoly which they had enjoyed and abused for so long the old feud between the two Companies was forgotten and they set to work belatedly to put their respective waterways in order. New and larger locks were built on the river and the two old navigation weirs which had proved such a hindrance to traffic in the reaches above and below Abel’s Gullet, were demolished. Despite the protests of the bow hauliers, the Company obtained powers to construct a horse towing-path from Darley Bank Wharf to Westerport and completed the work in twelve months. Meanwhile a great deal of overdue dredging was done on the river.

On the improvement of their canal the Lobstock Company consulted the last of the great canal engineers—Thomas Telford. After he had carried out a survey, Telford made two proposals; first, the construction of a second parallel tunnel at Ketton to relieve the congestion and traffic delays due to the restricted size of Brindley’s original bore; second, new cuts to reduce the length of the tortuous summit level between Ketton and Lobstock. The Company rejected the first proposal as too costly, but they directed Telford to proceed with the second with the result that the canal distance between Lobstock and the south end of Ketton Tunnel was reduced by three miles.

With the original work of James Brindley, these new cuts planned by Thomas Telford present a striking contrast; they show how much progress the civil engineer had already made in the campaign against nature. They also reveal that the canal engineers were responsible for developing those constructional techniques which would presently be employed by the railway builders to such great effect. With the exception of his Ketton tunnel, Brindley had bowed to nature and his canal had, so to speak, followed the grain of the country. As a result, when the scars of construction had healed, his winding summit level looked more like a natural watercourse than a man-made channel. For example, at one point near the village of Bowford Priors his canal made a wayward loop, over a mile long, round the flanks of a modest promontory of high ground which at this place thrusts eastwards into the Deepforest country. Telford beheaded this loop by means of a short but deep cutting through the high ground. At Barnby Moors where the canal encounters the valley of the little river Dargle there is another similar contrast. Brindley carried his canal up to the head of the valley where it tapped the source of the river, made an acute turn, and then followed the contours of the opposite side until it could resume its true direction. Telford’s new cut, on the other hand, marched boldly across the valley on a high embankment, spanning the Dargle by a cast iron aqueduct.

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