Friday 4 January 2013

Cosgrove Wolverton Iron Trunk Aqueduct

A few days ago we were moored by the recently repainted 201-year-old aqueduct over the Great Ouse at Cosgrove.

It always seems to be called the "Iron Trunk Aqueduct", as if the iron trunk construction is somehow special. Yet there are several other examples of iron trunk aqueducts including at least three on the Stratford Canal, and, of course, Pontcysyllte on the Llangollen Canal. Unlike those, though, the one at Cosgrove is built to accommodate wide beam boats ...

... not that you can tell from this shot of the towpath in the morning sun.

Did you know that the embankment each side of the iron trunk is pierced by two foot tunnels?

On the northern side is a gate which appears to prevent access, but it swings open easily.

Passing through the southern tunnel enables an exploration of the original line of the canal. Find out in a subsequent post how my plan to do this was scuppered.

3 comments:

Adam said...

Traditionally, it's the Wolverton Aqueduct rather than Consgrove Aqueduct.

Halfie said...

You're right, Adam, but a search engine returns 563 results for "cosgrove aqueduct" and only 149 for "wolverton aqueduct". Of course, this may be skewed by the fact that there appears to be a tunnel in Massachusetts called the Cosgrove Aqueduct. I'll amend the title...

Vallypee said...

Fascinating post, Halfie. Thanks!