Grand Junction Canal
The Oxford Canal had been built by James Brindley and carried coal to large parts of southern England. However it did not provide a sufficiently direct route between the Midlands and London. As a result, a new canal was proposed to run from the Oxford Canal at Braunston, near Rugby, and to end at the Thames at Brentford, a length of ninety miles. Jessop was appointed Chief Engineer to the Canal Company in 1793. The canal was especially difficult to plan because, whereas other canals tended to follow river valleys and only crossed a watershed when unavoidable, the new canal had to cross the rivers Ouse, Nene and others. An aqueduct was built at Wolverton to carry the canal across the Ouse valley. Whilst the three-arch stone aqueduct was being built, a set of nine temporary locks were used to carry the canal down one side of the valley and up the other. The aqueduct failed in 1808, and was replaced by an iron one in 1811, the iron trough design sharing a similar structure to the aqueduct at Longdon-on-Tern and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct built by Thomas Telford. It is known as the Cosgrove aqueduct and was designed and built by Bevan.
Two tunnels also had to be built, at Braunston and Blisworth. The Blisworth Tunnel caused great problems, and was unfinished when the rest of the canal was ready. In fact Jessop considered abandoning it and using locks to carry the canal over the ridge. Jessop’s temporary solution was a railway line laid over the ridge to carry traffic until the tunnel was completed. The Grand Junction Canal was enormously important in encouraging trade between London and the Midlands.
Read more about this topic: William Jessop
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