British Waterways Board Canal Maintenance Depot, Shropshire Union Canal (South-East Side) (Llangollen Branch) Timber Store (Pine Loft) British Waterways Board Canal Maintenance Depot

1585/18/94

ELLESMERE RURAL

BIRCH TIMBER STORE (PINE LOFT) BRITISH WATERWAYS BOARD CANAL MAINTENANCE DEPOT SHROPSHIRE UNION CANAL BIRCH BRITISH WATERWAYS BOARD CANAL MAINTENANCE DEPOT, SHROPSHIRE UNION CANAL (SOUTH EAST SIDE) (LLANGOLLEN BRANCH)

17-SEP-02

GV II* Timber store. Circa 1806 adjoining William Jessop's and Thomas Telford's Ellesmere Canal. Sandstone ashlar, with front of weatherboarded timber frame and brick bay to right; hipped asbestos sheet roof.

Two levels with wooden dentilled eaves cornice. Three windows on first floor, C19 three-light casements to left and right with C20 three-light casement to centre. Open to ground floor in four bays with wooden posts supporting upper level. Later C19 single storey sawshop range projecting from and closing right bay, with sliding doors to front and glazed sides. Early C20 lean-to to left, with three half-glazed sliding doors. Brick bay to right formerly housed steam engine.

Interior: king-post roof; belt-drive gearing in loft. Tracks leading from building formerly took coal trucks to steam-powered engine in open ground-floor area of building. This had been adapted from a locomotive engine, the cylinder and piston being mounted vertically, and generated power for working the machinery in the depot.

This building survives as an important functional part of the best-preserved canal workshop site in Britain. It was very probably built to the designs of Telford and Jessop, canal engineers being traditionally responsible for a wide range of structures from the trim (lettering and mileposts) to locks and keepers' houses. All canal companies had maintenance yards for work on boats, locks, paddle gearing and other aspects of the working fabric of inland waterways.

(Edward Wilson, The Ellesmere and Llangollen Canal (1975), p.53) SJ4006634181