Remains of former canal bridge, Wrockwardine Wood

Image: © Dr Neil Clifton Taken: 12 Apr 1963

The child here is standing on the deck of a former canal bridge. The canal has been filled in, although had I got here about five years earlier it would probably have still been in water. This was the Wombridge Canal, opened in 1788, which extended westwards from the previously isolated Donnington Wood Canal to Wombridge, and later about 1795 was connected by the Trench Inclined Plane to the Shrewsbury Canal at Trench Lock. The canal here was used by tub boats, measuring about 20ft x 6ft, and with capacity for about 8 tons of coal. The main traffic was coal, westwards from the collieries at Donnington Wood to Shrewsbury. At Trench Lock, the cargo was transferred from the tub boats into special 'narrow' narrowboats for onward shipment to Shrewsbury. Unfortunately the zombies of the Telford New Town development agency ignored all the rich industrial heritage in this area, and it has now all disappeared submerged in a sea of mediocrity.

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