Aerial view.

Description Aerial view.

Date 1983

Collection RCAHMS Aerial Photography

Catalogue Number ML 5507

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 797024, SC 1679467

Scope and Content Aerial view, Almond Aqueduct, Union Canal, Edinburgh, from north-east This shows the north side of the five-arched aqueduct, which was built between 1818 and 1822. Baird designed it with advice from Thomas Telford who had designed innovative aqueducts on the Ellesmere Canal. The 'L' shaped building (centre) is Lin's Mill and the small channel (top left) is a canal feeder which supplies water to the canal from Cobbinshaw Reservoir in the hills beyond West Calder, West Lothian. The original plan was for a single-arched aqueduct with embankments, but this was changed in favour of the design for the present structure. This Telford-based design includes an iron trough for water which means that the structure does not have to counter the water's outward pressure. The stone pillars and arches are therefore lighter and more elegant. The government authorised the construction of the Union Canal in 1817 and appointed Hugh Baird (1770-1827) as the chief engineer. The main purpose of the canal was to provide an economical route for the transportation of coal and lime between Edinburgh and Glasgow via the Forth & Clyde Canal (1768-90). The 51km-long canal was opened in 1822 at a cost of £461,760, almost double the estimate, and it ran from Lock 16 at Camelon, Falkirk to Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. Except where the two canals are joined at Falkirk, the canal was built with no locks because it followed the contours of the hills. The Union Canal was closed in 1965, two years after the Forth & Clyde Canal, and the construction of new roads meant that it was impossible for boats to travel along the full length of these watercourses. However, the £84.5m Millennium Link project enabled both canals to reopen in 2002. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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