The Swing Aqueduct

There is only one swing aqueduct in the world and it is at Barton, 4 miles west of Manchester. This is perhaps due to its high cost but also because it was an ingenious solution to what turned out to be a unique planning conundrum that occurred later in the ‘canal-mania’ that gripped the country during the Industrial Revolution.

The first canal was the 39-mile Bridgewater Canal, completed in 1761 and designed by James Brindley (1716-72) with a navigable aqueduct over the River Irwell at the village of Barton. It provided a more cost-effective method of transporting coal around the Manchester region. This worked well but then the 36-mile commercial Manchester Ship Canal was laid, merging with Barton’s section of the Irwell in 1894. Sir Edward Leader Williams (1828-1910) was the Canal’s engineer and he came up with the entirely novel turning tank of canal water to allow ships to pass.

This video shows the Barton swing aqueduct and its sister road bridge which also swings, but much faster, since it does not have to carry 800 tons of water! The 330ft x 18ft tank has sluice gates at each end to enclose the water, since Williams wanted to conserve it, both for speed and efficiency.

(Top image showing the road-bridge (centre) and the aqueduct (right) both open: Andrew at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0)