1795 was an interesting year. The French Revolution was still raging; Beethoven made his debut as a pianist, the British captured Capetown and two of the greatest engineers who ever lived embarked on bridging a 1,007ft gap across the Dee Valley, to carry the Shropshire Union canal.
Canals were the arteries of the Industrial Revolution throughout England and Wales and the race was on to connect the then Ellesmere Canal to the new pumping station on the River Dee at Llangollen, as well as Ellesmere Port itself on the Mersey Estuary.
Luckily, the engineering team of Thomas Telford and William Jessop were the most experienced canal and bridge builders of their time. Telford quickly put forward the idea of building a cast iron trough, similar in design to an earlier bridge of his in Longdon-on-Tern near Shrewsbury, placed on hollow stone pillars the width of the valley.
Despite much scepticism, Telford had his way. He built 19 supporting pillars, some up to 116ft (35m) high connected by 53ft wide iron arches. The mortar used in their construction was a mix of lime, water and ox blood. Nobody has yet worked out how many oxen this would have taken!!
The cast iron troughs were cast locally and dovetailed into each other. They were caulked by a mixture of pure Welsh linen and boiled sugar before being sealed over by lead.
The aqueduct was officially opened a month after the Battle of Trafalgar on the 26th November 1805 and cost the then considerable sum of £47,000. Ironically, this resulted in the project running out of money and the canal never reaching Ellesmere Port.
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