The Shropshire Canal was a tub boat canal built to supply coal, ore and limestone to the industrial region of east Shropshire, England, that adjoined the River Severn at Coalbrookdale. It ran from a junction with the Donnington Wood Canal ascending the 316 yard long Wrockwardine Wood inclined plane to its summit level, it made a junction with the older Ketley Canal and at Southall Bank the Coalbrookdale (Horsehay) branch went to Brierley Hill above Coalbrookdale; the main line descended via the 600 yard long Windmill Incline and the 350 yard long Hay Inclined Plane to Coalport on the River Severn. The short section of the Shropshire Canal from the base of the Hay Inclined Plane to its junction with the River Severn is sometimes referred to as the Coalport Canal.
Construction of the canal was completed in 1792, and it operated successfully until the 1830s. The construction and operation of the Hay inclined plane was documented by two Prussian engineers who visited it in 1826 or 1827. In the 1840s it was leased by the Shropshire Union Canal, but was suffering from subsidence by the 1850s. Following nine breaches in 1855 and 1856, it was purchased by the London and North Western Railway company, owners of the Shropshire Union, in 1857 and most of it was closed in 1858. A railway was laid along parts of it, but a small section at the southern end remained in operation until 1912, and was not formally abandoned until 1944. The Hay inclined plane and a section of the canal now form part of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust.
History William Reynolds was born in Ketley in 1758, the oldest son of Richard Reynolds and his first wife Hannah Darby. His father was an ironmaster and philanthropist, and managed the Coalbrookdale ironworks from 1763 to 1768, during which time the young William served his apprenticeship there. He was extremely able, studying chemistry, taking an interest in geology and other sciences, and keeping a laboratory and library at his home. With his brother-in-law, he had set up a new ironworks at Donnington Wood in 1783. He developed a circle of friends from the engineers and manufacturers who visited Coalbrookdale, including Matthew Boulton, James Watt, 'Iron Mad' John Wilkinson, Thomas Telford, and a number of intellectuals connected with Joseph Plymley.
Having completed the Wombridge Canal and the Ketley Canal with its inclined plane in 1788, Reynolds, who was by now an innovative ironmaster aged 30, set his sights on a canal from the Donnington Wood Canal to the River Severn. He enlisted the help of various others, including his father Richard Reynolds, John Wilkinson, and Granville Leveson-Gower, who held various titles including Earl Gower and Marquess of Stafford. Reynolds, senior, contributed £6,000, Wilkinson £5,500, Leveson-Gower £2,000, while Reynolds himself contributed £1,000. An act of Parliament, the (28 Geo. 3. c. 73), was obtained on 11 June 1788, which created the Company of Proprietors of the Shropshire Navigation, and a meeting was held the following day, at which £50,000 of capital was reported to have been pledged. The authorised share capital was £62,500, divided into 500 shares worth £125 each. The Shropshire Canal Act 1788 listed the names of owners of land through which the canal would pass, and also the names of the 58 subscribers who would form the company of proprietors.
A route for the canal had been surveyed by Reynolds, and it seems likely that he was assisted in this task by the civil engineer William Jessop, since Jessop provided evidence to support the case for the canal during its passage through Parliament. Despite the known success of the inclined plane on the neighbouring Ketley Canal, water in the Ketley Canal was being lost from locks at the incline's summit: the management committee decided to hold a competition for designs for "the best means of raising and lowering heavy weights from one navigation to another." After placing advertisements, they also encouraged the steam engine manufacturers Boulton & Watt to enter. A prize of 50 guineas (£52.50) was offered, and several models were submitted. The committee enlisted the help of John Wilkinson and the inventor and engineer James Watt to judge the designs, and were more generous with prizes than they had advertised, since John Lowden of Snedshill and Henry Williams of Ketley both received £50, and several consolation prizes were also awarded.
Lowden had been appointed as surveyor before the competition was completed, and supervised the work. Progress was quick, as the section from the top of the Wrockwardine Wood inclined plane to the junction with the Ketley Canal was finished in early 1789. The Donnington Wood Canal built a short extension to link to the bottom of the plane. Just a year later, the canal had reached Southall Bank, but Lowden resigned, as the pressure was too great. Two other men also resigned in similar circumstances, but in February 1794, the civil engineer Henry Williams was appointed superintendent and agent for the canal, and remained in this post until 1839, when he retired. Parts of the canal were operational by 3 September 1790, when the first tolls were collected, and the Wrockwardine Wood inclined plane was working soon afterwards. In 1791, most of the main line was serviceable, although piling for the wharves on the River Severn was still taking place in May 1792, and construction was completed by the end of the year.
At the bottom of the Hay inclined plane, a level section of canal ran alongside the river, heading eastwards. Initially there was a lock into the river, with a fall of but since tub-boats were unsuitable for use on the river, and river boats could not use the canal, it was soon found to be redundant, and filled in. A number of warehouses were built between the canal and the river, with small inclined planes leading from the warehouses to wharfs on the river.
When completed, the main line was about long, while the Horsehay branch, which was opened in 1792, was about long. The total cost of the project was below the original estimate, at either £47,000 or £47,500. Although there were no locks, water was still lost from the canal, and a number of reservoirs were built to keep it supplied with water.
Operation
The route included three tunnels and three inclined planes. Near to Wilkinson's iron works at Snedshill, the Snedshill Tunnel was yards long, and the Stirchley Tunnel was slightly longer at 281 yards (257m). There was also a short tunnel under the London to Holyhead road. They were about wide at water level, and high. The canal was somewhat wider, at and was deep. The design of the inclined planes was modified from that used on the Ketley Canal, where there was a lock at the top, which resulted in a loss of water each time the plane was used. Instead Reynolds used a system where the boats passed over a hump, after which a short downward-sloping section took the boats into the canal. This virtually eliminated water loss, but required the provision of a steam engine at each of the inclines. On the Wrockwardine Wood inclined plane, most of the traffic was in the uphill direction, and so the steam engine was used to raise the boats up the incline. On the other inclines, the traffic was downhill, and so they were counterbalanced, with the descending load raising the empty boats on the other track. The engine was only required to assist the boat over the hump at the top.
The Wrockwardine Wood inclined plane was long and lifted the canal by . The Windmill inclined plane was much longer at dropping the level by , while the Hay inclined plane was the steepest, descending in . While the Wrockwardine Wood plane was worked by a steam engine from the start, the engines for the other two planes were not ready when they began operation, and the initial movement of the boats was assisted by horses until 1793, when the engines were commissioned. The canal joined the Ketley Canal at Oakengates. However, there was a difference in the water levels and a lock was required to compensate for the 1 ft (0.3m) drop. At its southern end, to the south of Southall wharf, the canal split into two, with the main line continuing to Coalport via the two inclined planes, and the Horsehay branch running to Brierley Hill, terminating on the hill about above the Coalbrookdale works. A tramway from the works tunnelled into the hill, ending in a cavern below the terminus of the canal. From here two vertical shafts were constructed, with coal and iron ore descending and limestone ascending in crates. Because the bulk of the transfers were from the canal to the tramway, and limestone was lighter by volume than ironstone, the system was self-powered. Expenditure on the apparatus was £2,742, and the system was operational by 4 October 1792. The shafts and tunnel belonged to the Dale Company, and the Shropshire Canal decided not to take them over when they were completed. Instead the Dale Company charged tolls for their use. Despite heavy usage, with 1,801 tons of coal descending in the six weeks from 2 September 1793, the system was not a success, and was replaced by a tramway inclined plane in 1794. The tramway was soon extended along the length of the Horsehay branch, making the canal redundant.
The company was run by industrialists, who were keen to keep the tolls low, as many of them used the canal to transport their own merchandise. Despite this, an initial dividend of 2.5 per cent was declared in 1793, only a year after construction was completed, and dividends rose steadily to reach around 8 per cent in the 1830s. The terminus at Coalport developed rapidly, with housing to create a village, two potteries, a factory making ropes, and a works manufacturing chains. By 1810 the facilities were proving to be inadequate, and a new basin with capacity for 60 tub boats was constructed, while the wharfs were also extended. Although there are no exact figures, it has been estimated that some 100,000 tons of cargo passed through the warehouses each year during the canal's peak years, most of it coal and iron.
Inclined planes
In 1826 and 1827, two Prussian engineers visited Britain to look at a number of railways, and the construction and operation of the Hay inclined plane was described in some detail in their subsequent publication. The rails were made of cast iron, and were "L" shaped in section. The running surface was wide by thick, while the vertical flange was tall and thick. They were described as the strongest and thickest that they had seen. Most of the incline was laid with only three rails, with a small section in the middle which had four rails, so that the boats could pass one another. Because the flanges were on the rails rather than on the wheels as in modern railway practice, one track had the flanges on the inside, and the other on the outside. The rails were fixed to timbers running along the incline, square, which were attached to wooden sleepers which ran across the incline.