Wombourne Canal Part 2 - Trench to Church Road

Telford's Tub Boat Canals
Womborne Canal - Trench to Church Road
February 2012

We are moving back to to modern canals, a section which was still being used commercially till 1921, not that you would think so from the first quarter of a mile from Trench Inclined Plane to Teague's Bridge on the Wombridge Road. This section is completely and utterly lost beneath a new housing estate.

Middle section of the Wombridge Canal 1902

Here is a modern map of the same canal:

Beside The Bridge - Teagues Bridge 2012

Teagues Bridge 1965

Teague's Bridge - Source Simon Hark

The line can be picked up at The Bridge pub, with the canal passing into a strip of waste ground to the north of the car park. On the eastern side of Wombridge Road a footpath follows the old towpath to the east, skirting the boundary of playing fields. The line is distinct if you are looking for it but invisible if not.

 Opposite the Bridge Inn

...and into the playing fields (canal on high ground to left)

Towpath to old flour mill

The route then moves out across the site of Wrockwardine Wood Athletics Stadium, but the land has been so altered there is little evidence of its passing till it squeezes into a gap beside Wrockwardine Wood School and the old Donnington Wood flour mill on Church Road, with a modern footpath following the line of the old towpath.

Donnington Wood flour mill - then and now

When we researched this route we didn't expect any visible remains and it came as a pleasant surprise to find much of the route so clearly visible - even if there were no tangible remains.


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