Pontymoile canal junction

button-theme-canalPontymoile canal junction

Pontymoile (or Pontymoel) is where the Monmouthshire and Brecon & Abergavenny canals were joined together in 1812.

The Monmouthshire Canal (MC) was built 1792-1798 to connect thriving industries – mainly ironworks in the Blaenavon area – to the sea at Newport. There were 11 locks in the 5km section between here and the canal terminus at Pontnewynydd. Parliament authorised the canal company to build tramroads (basic railways) to bring materials to the canal from ironworks, quarries and collieries.

pontypool_canal_outing_1941

The Brecon & Abergavenny Canal (B&A) was authorised a year later, in 1793, but took longer to construct. The MC company was eager for the canals to join because of the B&A’s abundant water supplies, mainly from the wide catchment area of the river Usk at and below Brecon. The MC’s own supply, from a smaller catchment area, struggled to cope with the water lost through daily operation of its many locks.

The MC company offered the B&A £3,000 to extend to Pontymoile, and sent its own engineer to survey the route free of charge. As a further inducement, it agreed that the B&A’s cheaper fees would apply to all goods loaded along the B&A, even if the cargo continued along the MC to Newport.

To save money, industrialists in the Blaenavon area diverted their goods to wharves on the rural B&A, installing major tramroad infrastructure to do so. The result was a sudden decline in boats between Pontnewynydd and Pontymoile, where the canal was soon obsolete.

In 1852 the Monmouthshire Railway & Canal Company (as the concern had been renamed) opened a railway to Blaenavon, partly on the old canal route. The spur west of Pontymoile basin is all that survives of the canal to Pontnewynydd. There was a wharf alongside the spur (served by a siding off the railway which tunnelled under the canal basin) and, by 1902, a boathouse at the end of the spur.

The old photo (courtesy of the MBACT archive) shows staff from Lion House, Pontypool, at Pontymoile on a wartime summer outing to Goytre in 1941. The store was owned by members of the Fowler family, one of whom is holding the megaphone in the photo.

The railway from Pontypool Road station to Aberdare and Neath crossed the canal where the A472 road now crosses.

With thanks to the Monmouthshire, Brecon and Abergavenny Canals Trust

Postcode: NP4 0RF    View Location Map

Canal & River Trust website – Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal

Monmouthshire, Brecon and Abergavenny Canals Trust website

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