Edstone Aqueduct - you learn something every day!
I managed to get outside in the sunshine at lunchtime today, so I drove a couple of miles to Edstone Aqueduct.
It is one of the earliest cast iron canal aqueducts in the country and is the longest in England. Built in the early 1800's, the aqueduct spans a road, a river and a railway track, and its construction is a 250 yard cast iron trough sitting on 13 brick piers. It is also fairly unusual in that the towpath (on the right hand side of this photo) is at the level of the canal bottom. The Edstone Aqueduct was at one time owned by the Great Western Railway, who fitted a pipe in the base of the trough and used it to refill the tanks of passing steam trains.
It's fun to drive along the road under the aqueduct in the summer when a barge is passing overhead, and to keep fingers crossed that it doesn't all give way!
I didn't know most of this information previously, I "Googled" it in order to write this description, so I've learned a lot today.
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