| Aldersley Junction | |
|---|---|
 Aldersley Junction, showing Wolverhampton bottom lock at the end of the BCN Main Line | |
| Specifications | |
| Status | Open |
| Navigation authority | Canal & River Trust |
| History | |
| Date completed | 1772 |
Tettenhall and Autherley Canal | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Aldersley Junction (grid reference SJ902011 ) is the name of the canal junction where the Birmingham Main Line Canal terminates and meets the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal near to Oxley, north Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England. It opened in 1772.
The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal opened in April 1772, connecting Great Haywood Junction on the Trent and Mersey Canal to Stourport on the River Severn. [1] The Birmingham Canal was authorised by an Act of Parliament dated 24 February 1768. It would run from Birmingham to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire main line at Autherley, which was also known as Aldersley at the time. An unusual clause in the Act made provision for the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal to build the junction between the two canals themselves, if the Birmingham company failed to complete it within six months of opening their canal. They could also charge the Birmingham company for the full cost of the construction. [2]
The Birmingham company lost no time in opening the route from Birmingham to Wednesbury, where there were collieries, [3] but were less keen in the opinion of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire, to complete the link to their canal. Work began on the link in early 1770, but in May the Staffordshire and Worcestershire attempted to obtain a mandamus writ, which would have compelled the other company to make the junction. They failed to get one, and so in January 1771 they presented a bill to Parliament to authorise them to make the junction. At this point, the Birmingham company negotiated, paid the costs of the bill, and agreed to press on quickly with the link. It was no small task, as it involved a flight of 20 locks (later increased to 21) to drop the level of the canal 132 feet (40 m) between Wolverhampton and the junction. The junction opened for traffic on 21 September 1772, [4] some five months after the Staffordshire and Worcestershire had opened.
The names Autherley and Aldersley continued to be used interchangeably until the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal opened their canal to join the Chester Canal to a new junction around 0.5 miles (0.8 km) further to the north. At this point, Autherley was applied to the northern junction and Aldersley to the southern junction. [5] Prior to the opening of the new canal, there had been considerable trade on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal between the Potteries and the south-western cities of Gloucester and Bristol, and also trade in manufactured goods north from Birmingham. The Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal, however, was one of the new generation of canals, which rather than winding across the countryside following the contours, used embankments and cuttings to create a more direct route, and tended to group the locks into flights. It was therefore shorter and quicker, with the result that much of the trade which had formerly travelled the 21 miles (34 km) from Aldersley to Great Haywood Junction now travelled the short distance between Aldersley and Autherley. The Staffordshire and Worcestershire raised the tolls for this stretch to absurd levels, in an attempt to reduce their losses. [1]
In order to resolve the situation, the Birmingham Canal company worked with the Liverpool Junction company, and proposed the Tettenhall and Autherley Canal and Aqueduct. This would have left the Birmingham Canal just above lock 19, crossed the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal just below Aldersley Junction by an aqueduct made of iron, and then dropped down through three locks to join the Liverpool Junction Canal above the stop lock. The plans were drawn up by Dugdale Houghton, a firm of surveyors from Birmingham, [6] but the canal was never constructed, as the Staffordshire and Worcestershire company reduced their tolls rather than lose them altogether. [1]
Aldersley Junction is on the summit level of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, which is at a height of around 340 feet (100 m) above sea level. The pound continues for 8.1 miles (13.0 km) to the north before reaching Gailey Lock, the first one that starts the descent to Great Haywood Junction. To the south, Compton Lock is 1.8 miles (2.9 km) away, and starts the descent to Stourbridge. [7] The Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal became part of the Shropshire Union Canal network in 1846. There is a stop lock just after Autherley Junction, which drops the level by just a few inches, and then a level pound of 7.8 miles (12.6 km) before the first real lock at Wheaton Aston. [8] The Birmingham Canal became part of the Birmingham Canal Navigations, and the first of 21 locks which raise the canal 132 feet (40 m) up to the 473-foot (144 m) level is located immediately after the junction. [9]
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aldersley Junction . |
The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal is a navigable narrow canal in Staffordshire and Worcestershire in the English Midlands. It is 46 miles (74 km) long, linking the River Severn at Stourport in Worcestershire with the Trent and Mersey Canal at Haywood Junction by Great Haywood.
The Shropshire Union Canal, nicknamed the "Shroppie", is a navigable canal in England. The Llangollen and Montgomery canals are the modern names of branches of the Shropshire Union (SU) system and lie partially in Wales.
The Chester Canal was an English canal linking the south Cheshire town of Nantwich with the River Dee at Chester. It was intended to link Chester to Middlewich, with a branch to Nantwich, but the Trent and Mersey Canal were unco-operative about a junction at Middlewich, and so the route to Nantwich was opened in 1779. There were also difficulties negotiating with the River Dee Company, and with no possibility of through traffic, the canal was uneconomic. Part of it was closed in 1787, when Beeston staircase locks collapsed, and there was no money to fund repairs. When the Ellesmere Canal was proposed in 1790, the company saw it as a ray of hope, and somehow managed to keep the struggling canal open. The Ellesmere Canal provided a link to the River Mersey at Ellesmere Port from 1797, and the fortunes of the Chester Canal began to improve.
Norbury Junction is a canal junction which lies about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the south east of Norbury, in Staffordshire, England. It opened in 1835, and closed in 1944, although the main line of the Shropshire Union Canal still runs through it.
Haywood Junction, or Great Haywood Junction, is the name of the canal junction where the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal terminates and meets the Trent and Mersey Canal near to the village of Great Haywood, Staffordshire, England.
Autherley Junction is the name of the canal junction where the Shropshire Union Canal terminates and meets the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal near to Oxley, north Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England.
The BCN Main Line, or Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line describes the evolving route of the Birmingham Canal between Birmingham and Wolverhampton in England.
Smethwick Junction is the name of the canal junctions where the Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line Canal from Birmingham splits into the BCN Old Main Line and the BCN New Main Line near to Smethwick, West Midlands, England.
The Four Counties Ring is a canal ring which links the four English counties of Cheshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and the West Midlands.
The Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union Canal is located in Cheshire, in the north west of England, and runs between Middlewich, where it joins the Trent and Mersey Canal, and Barbridge Junction, where it joins the main line of the Shropshire Union Canal. It is 10 miles (16 km) long, and was planned as part of the Chester Canal, which was authorised in 1772, but the company ran out of money, and construction did not begin until 1827. The Trent and Mersey insisted that there should be no direct connection at Middlewich, and instead built the short Wardle Canal to join the two, charging large compensation tolls for traffic passing along it.
Frankton Junction is the name of the canal junction where the Montgomery Canal terminates and meets the Llangollen Canal at Lower Frankton, Shropshire, England.
Hurleston Junction is the name of the canal junction where the Llangollen Canal terminates and meets the Shropshire Union Canal main line at Hurleston, Cheshire, England.
Horseley Fields Junction is a canal junction at the western limit of the Wyrley and Essington Canal where it meets the BCN Main Line, at Horseley Fields east of Wolverhampton, in the West Midlands, England.
Rumer Hill Junction was a canal junction on the Cannock Extension Canal where the Churchbridge Branch left to join the Hatherton Canal. The junction, along with the northern section of the canal was abandoned in 1963. The Churchbridge Branch and Rumer Hill Junction were subsequently obliterated by opencast mining.
Spon Lane Junction is the original junction of the Wednesbury Canal and the Birmingham Canal, near Oldbury in the West Midlands, England.
Bromford Junction is a canal junction at the foot of the Spon Lane Locks where the Spon Lane Locks Branch meets the BCN New Main Line near Oldbury in the West Midlands, England.
Barbridge Junction is the name of the canal junction located at Barbridge, Cheshire, where the Shropshire Union Canal Middlewich Branch terminates and meets the Shropshire Union Canal main line.
Delph Locks or the Delph Nine are a series of eight narrow canal locks on the Dudley No. 1 Canal in Brierley Hill, in the West Midlands, England. They were opened in 1779, and reopened in 1967 following restoration of the Dudley Canal and the Stourbridge Canal in a joint venture between the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal Society and the British Waterways Board.
The Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal was a canal in England which ran from Nantwich, where it joined the Chester Canal, to Autherley, where it joined the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. Forming part of a major link between Liverpool and the industrial heartlands of the Midlands, the canal was opened in 1835, and merged with the Ellesmere and Chester Canal Company in 1845, which became the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company in the following year.
Hawkesbury Junction or Sutton Stop is a canal junction in England, at the northern limit of the Oxford Canal where it meets the Coventry Canal, near Hawkesbury Village, Warwickshire, between Bedworth and Coventry. The alternative name, Sutton Stop, arises from the name of a family which provided several lock keepers there in the nineteenth century.
