History

The Tennant Canal, engineered by William Kirkhouse, was begun in 1821 and the aqueduct across the River Neath at Aberdulais was begun in 1823. The canal opened in 1824 from the Neath Canal at Aberdulais to Port Tennant, Swansea. Traffic declined from the 1860s due to competition with railways but the canal did not close to commercial traffic until 1934.

Exterior

A 10-bay aqueduct of coursed rubble stone, with dressed stone segmental arch rings. The arches are of uneven spans, being wider in the centre. V-shaped cutwaters on the upstream side have pyramidal caps. Towpaths are on both sides. The coping is part stone, part brick. The aqueduct enters a lock on the W bank and has a cast iron trough with stone coping at the E end (passing over a former and earlier navigable channel) before it enters the Aberdulais Basin on the E bank.

Reasons for Listing

Listed Grade II* for its industrial archaeological interest as a fine example of early C19 canal engineering in a prominent location, and for group value with other associated listed items on the Tennant Canal at Aberdulais.

Scheduled Ancient Monument GM 506 (NEP).

External Links

• Cadwr Listing

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)