Beat Bank Branch Canal
Beat Bank Branch Canal | |
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Specifications | |
Status | abandoned before completion |
History | |
Original owner | Ashton Canal Company |
Date of act | 1793 |
Date closed | 1798 |
Geography | |
Start point | Beat Bank, Denton |
End point | South Reddish |
Connects to | Stockport Branch Canal |
Beat Bank Branch Canal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Beat Bank Branch Canal was an abortive canal near
History
The Stockport Branch Canal and the Beat Bank Branch Canal were both authorised by an
An Act of Parliament obtained in 1798 allowed the Canal Company to raise further money and abandon the unfinished canal. Its progress through Parliament was opposed by Hulton, who declined an initial offer of the unfinished canal, but he was unsuccessful in his opposition. Some of the money raised was used to pay compensation to land and property owners along the line of the canal for loss or damage caused by the activities of the Canal Company.[2]
Route
Only a very short length of the canal was put in water at Reddish[3] and this was known as the Beat Bank or Reddish Private Branch. Just beyond the watered section, the plans showed a 110-yard (100 m) tunnel, but construction of this was not started. Beyond the tunnel, most of the bed was excavated for a distance of around 0.6 miles (0.97 km). No work was done on the section between there and the site of a proposed reservoir, and then another section of around 1 mile (1.6 km) was built, but the final length to the collieries was not.[4]
Sections of this canal still remain along Reddish Vale Allotments, to the right of Ross Lave Lane and past the M60 viaduct. The engineers who built the M60 viaduct used the same contours as those who built the Beat Bank branch canal and subsequently severed it.
The 1848 Ordnance Survey map shows about 300 yards (270 m) of canal running from the junction towards the site of the tunnel, but there are no buildings to indicate what it might have been used for.[5] By 1893, only about half of it was left,[6] and by 1907, an engineering works had been built beside the railway, and the remains of the canal are shown as little more than a widening of the main line at the location of the former junction.[7]
Points of interest
Point | Coordinates (Links to map resources) |
OS Grid Ref | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
East end of excavated section | 53°26′32″N 2°07′30″W / 53.4421°N 2.1249°W | SJ917939 | section 5[8] |
Course cut by motorway | 53°26′28″N 2°07′54″W / 53.4410°N 2.1316°W | SJ913938 | section 5 |
West end of excavated section | 53°26′35″N 2°08′27″W / 53.4430°N 2.1409°W | SJ907940 | section 5 |
East end of excavated section | 53°26′25″N 2°08′51″W / 53.4403°N 2.1475°W | SJ903937 | section 3 |
East end of tunnel site | 53°26′02″N 2°09′09″W / 53.4339°N 2.1524°W | SJ899930 | section 3 |
End of watered section | 53°25′58″N 2°09′33″W / 53.4328°N 2.1593°W | SJ895928 | section 1 |
Junction with Stockport Canal | 53°25′55″N 2°09′45″W / 53.4319°N 2.1626°W | SJ892928 |
See also
Bibliography
- Dean, Richard (2001). Canals of Manchester. Historical Canal Maps (No. 3). M&M Baldwin. ISBN 0-947712-12-7.
- Hadfield, Charles; Biddle, Gordon (1970). The Canals of North West England (Vol 2). David and Charles. ISBN 0-7153-4992-9.
References
- ^ Hadfield & Biddle 1970, pp. 294–295
- ^ Hadfield & Biddle 1970, pp. 295–296
- ^ Hadfield & Biddle 1970, p. 298
- ^ Dean 2001
- ^ Ordnance Survey, 1:10,560 map, 1848
- ^ Ordnance Survey, 1:2500 map, 1893
- ^ Ordnance Survey, 1:2500 map, 1907
- ^ All points are based on the 1848 Ordnance Survey 1:10,560 map