Blacksmith'S And Joiner'S Shop, British Waterways Board Canal Maintenance Depot British Waterways Board Canal Maintenance Depot, Shropshire Union Canal (South-East Side) (Llangollen Branch)

Blacksmith's and joiner's shop, circa 1806, adjoining William Jessop's and Thomas Telford's Ellesmere Canal, with later additions and alterations. The building forms part of the British Waterways Board Canal Maintenance Depot on the south-east side of the Shropshire Union Canal (Llangollen Branch) at Birch.

The structure is built of roughly coursed sandstone rubble with red brick dressings. The right-hand workshop was heightened and rebuilt to front in painted timber frame with red brick infill. To the right of this is a lower weatherboarded range, which finishes at its right end in a two-storey bay of sandstone rubble with brick first floor. The roofs are slate and corrugated iron, half-hipped towards the canal end. Both upper and lower parts feature dentilled eaves cornices.

The left-hand (upper) range contains a ground-floor blacksmith's shop, with external stairs to the first floor. The first floor houses a pattern store to the right and a joiner's shop to the left. The right-hand (lower) range comprises a workshop, which was heightened from its original single-storey structure in the late 19th century. At the right end is a ground-floor paint shop and a first-floor mess room.

The exterior displays tall round-arched windows with late 19th-century industrial glazing on both floors of the upper part, facing the yard. There is a continuous line of roof lights above the joiner's shop. External wooden steps lead to an open-gabled timber projection over a round-headed boarded door on the first floor. A rectangular overhanging projection to the right has a glazing bar sash to the front. The lower range features a continuous run of half-glazed sliding doors to the front, with a wide segmental-headed door to the right. Above are two segmental windows and a small segmental-headed window serving the mess room. Three wide roof lights are set in the lower range. All windows except where specifically mentioned have late 19th-century industrial glazing with lapped glazing set in thin vertical glazing bars. The rear elevation has round-headed barred windows to both ranges and stacks positioned in the bottom of the roof slope. A walkway with slate roof runs along the canal side to the right-hand end, with 16-pane sashes above.

The interior is notable for the retention of fixtures and fittings, mostly of late 19th-century date. Belt-drive gearing runs throughout, some boxed in, all powered by the engine house attached to the adjacent Timber Store. The blacksmith's workshop features workbenches along the southern wall, cupboards on the north and west walls, a forge with trough and metal shields, a bending slab, and fixed industrial machinery including a drill and lathes. The joiner's shop retains 19th-century cupboards, including a pigeon hole cupboard on the east wall and extensive boxing around machinery that includes workbenches and a sawbench. The roof has timber principals with wrought-iron tension rods. The pattern shop contains racking with many 19th and early 20th-century patterns for castings. The workshop features a timber roof and a late 19th-century overhead crane comprising a trussed beam, workbench, and four pieces of fixed machinery, with matchboard partitions and extensive glazing to a corner office. The first-floor mess room next to the canal has matchboarded walls, fixed benches, clothes pegs, a cast-iron range, and a stone sink.

This is an exceptionally well-preserved 19th-century workshop range, among the best in the country, and forms part of the best-preserved canal workshop site in Britain. The building was very probably built to the designs of Telford and Jessop, who as canal engineers were traditionally responsible for a wide range of structures from lettering and mileposts to locks and keepers' houses. All canal companies maintained yards for work on boats, locks, paddle gearing, and other essential elements of inland waterway infrastructure.