High Bridge (Bridge No.39) Shropshire Union Canal Main Line

A canal bridge and wing walls, built 1832-3, for the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal Company, by Thomas Telford, principal engineer; William Provis, consulting engineer and contractor; and Alexander Easton, resident engineer. A strainer arch was inserted into the bridge in the mid-C19 onto which a telegraph pole was placed in 1861 by the United Kingdom Telegraph Company. In the late C20 the bridge was partly cement rendered and the parapet rebuilt.

MATERIALS: The bridge is constructed from brick, now partly cement rendered, with a rebuilt parapet of blue engineering brick and stone coping. The revetment wing walls are of rock-faced rusticated sandstone.

DESCRIPTION: A single-span canal bridge carrying the A519 Newcastle-under-Lyme to Newport road over the Shropshire Union Canal Main Line. It consists of a semi-circular, horseshoe arch of around 12.2m in height, built on a slight skew. The north and south faces of the bridge have a stone band at road level from below which the spandrel walls are cement rendered, each face with exaggerated keystone and voussoir mouldings. A brick strainer arch with a segmental-arched top and bottom spans the principal arch at its half-way point and has a wooden telegraph pole affixed to its upper section. Attached to the tow path (west) side of the bridge are two iron rope fenders. The shallow road-side parapet has chamfered coping stones and terminates in square piers with chamfered stone caps. On the north and south sides of the bridge there are opposing revetment wing walls. A service pipe (not of special interest) runs across the south side of the bridge.