Ketley to Oakengates

In 1788 William Reynolds of Ketley, Ironmaster, and son of Richard Reynolds of Coalbrookdale, was a young man in his twenties. He was an enthusiastic innovator, and having built the Wombridge to Donnington Wood canal, and the Tar Tunnel at Coalport, he decided he would build a canal from the iron ore and coal mines of Oakengates, to his iron foundries in Ketley.

The canal started about where the Greyhound roundabout is today, and followed the course of the modern Holyhead Rd, built by Thomas Telford in the 19th century. The church of Holy Trinity is built directly over it, a sensible move on the part of the architect, as it would have been one of the few areas in the district not likely to be undermined.

Bank House, sometime home to William Reynolds

It carried on through a pear tree orchard, where there was a bridge, and today the place is marked by the Pear Tree Bridge Inn.

In the 1930's. George Pearson stands outside.

Today

It continued westwards over under another bridge, now next to the Walker Tech, part of TCAT. One of the four bridge stones survives, the others have been borrowed.

Crossing the modern Hartshill roundabout, the course continued west, crossing the Holyhead road at the Vauxhall garage, running in front of the warehouse buildings, and into a tunnel under Shepherds Lane on Red Lake Hill. There is a story that in the 19th century a local houseowner parked his pony and trap outside his front door, popped inside for something, and when he returned, the horse and carriage had disappeared into the subsided tunnel.

The canal emerged on the east side of the hill, and still has a large expanse of water in it.

It continued westward to run directly south of Ketley Hall, and here was the problem. William Reynolds was faced with a drop of 73 ft to the land in front of his ironworks. He could not use pound locks, the usual answer to changing height on canals, as there was not enough flowing water, what there was came only from  the exhaust pumpings of the mines. He could have unloaded the boats at the top of the hill into waggons, and let them down the slope under the control of horses or a steam engine, but this would have meant a lot of extra manipulating of the cargo.

His plan was radical, and was to change the face of the canal transport possibilities, empowering the North Coalbrookdale coalfield, hitherto cut off from the Industrial Revolution activities of the South, nearer the transport on the Severn. Indeed the access that he gave meant that manufacturers and mine owners now had access to the world, that was not dependent on the vagaries of the Severn River water level, which in summer could often be too low to float barges, and in the floods, too dangerous.

Although used once before, in a failed project in Tyrone, Ireland, William Reynolds decided that he would move his cargoes still in the tub boats, down an Inclined Plane. There were already wagon incline planes in action, but here the boats were maneuvered into a top pound lock, and the water drained off into a side lock, so that the boat settled onto a cradle. This was then lowered down a tracked railway braked by a  windlass, that at the same time was hauling up another boat, either empty, or with a lighter cargo. The cradle had wheels of differing diameters at the front and back, that kept the boat level and avoided spillage. The water could be pumped back up into the top canal by a steam pumping engine. The incline was completed in 1788,

Reynolds wrote to his brother-in-law :

~ To William Rathbone Junr. Liverpool.

Dear Brother, (Ketley) Bank16 Jany. 11 o'clock. 1788

     Please to give my dear love to my sister I have not forgot her as I often think of her tho' I never write to her. Indeed I have my hands full -we are making a canal from Oakengates to Ketley & have between 2 & 300 men at work upon it & as I am head and subschemer, Engineer & Director & have besides one in contemplation from the same place to the river wch I have been obliged to Levell & relevell, survey & resurvey I have had scarce time to do anything but think of them-I have not yet heard of the pig iron-as I expect some Cornish men here soon to attempt working mines shall be glad to have if they can be bot of those thou mentions

40 Beds compleat 100 Flannel Drawers 50 pr Kendal Stockings
60 Hamacoes 100 Linnen Frocks 50 Do Leister
40 White jackets 200 Trowsers 50 pr Shoes

                           thy affectionate Bro.    W Reynolds

A token was cast in 1769 with a view of the top windlass on the incline plane, seen from the side.

A steam powered Incline Plane seen from the side, ( this was not the sort on the Ketley incline, as no steam power was used here.) The illustration shows a lipped incline with no terminal lock.

From the top, the cradle can be seen top left, just underneath a pulley on a bar. Downhill is to the right

From the front. The steam engine (here called a Fire Engine) is seen to the left. and the winding drum sits over the canals.

Ketley Inclined Plane today, it would have passed just to the right of the white house. 

Parker's Pool today, one of the canal terminal pools

Although the incline has now gone you get an idea of how it will have looked, from the pictures in the section on The Shrewsbury Canal, and The Shropshire Canal.

The Ketley Works closed in 1816, but on the site today flourishes the Sinclair Foundry, and the Aga/Rayburn enamelling plant.

And here is a (rather poor) reproduction of a 1794 map showing the Oakengates to Ketley canal snaking in from the right, passing through the tunnel under Shepherd's Lane, continuing in the section which is still in water, bending south to reach the top of the incline by Ketley Hall, and then descending to the feed canal to the factories. The terminal pools are seen on the left.