Shropshire Union Canal near Market Drayton, Shropshire

Image: © Roger D Kidd Taken: 24 May 2009

This canal has many straight stretches, as here where it approaches Market Drayton, seen from below Victoria Bridge. When the early canals were being pioneered in the 18th century by engineers such as James Brindley, the routes taken were usually level, contour hugging and (as a result) meandering. This was done to avoid the necessity for building locks and embankments and digging cuttings where-ever possible. The mileage for working boats to cover could be very considerable. By the time railways were in the ascendency towards the middle of the 19th century, the time boats took for their journeys needed to be cut as much as possible. Early canals such as the Oxford Canal were straightened (and consequently their mileage shortened) considerably by the construction of cuttings and embankments in the 1820s. Here, the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal (now called the Shropshire Union Canal) was not built until the 1830s. Thomas Telford the engineer took the shortest possible route that technology of the time could manage. His flights of locks, huge embankments and long cuttings are a characteristic of the canal, and caused (and still cause) problems with breaches and blockages. However, by 1835 the canal was opened fully.

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