Huddlesford Junction

Huddlesford Junction
The Lichfield Canal from Huddlesford Junction
Specifications
Status	moorings
Navigation authority	British Waterways
History
Date completed	1797
Date closed	1954

Huddlesford Junction (grid reference SK150095) is a canal junction at the original north-eastern limit of the Wyrley and Essington Canal where it met the Coventry Canal, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, England.

The Coventry Canal was authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1768, and the intention was to build a canal from Coventry, passing through Bedworth, Atherstone, Fazeley and Whittington, to join with the Grand Trunk Canal at Fradley Junction. The Grand Trunk Canal was later renamed the Trent and Mersey Canal. Good progress was made at first, and the initial 10 miles (16 km) form Coventry to Bedworth, where there were coal mines, opened in 1769. A lucrative trade in coal developed, and two years later, the canal reached Atherstone, but here a flight of eleven locks were needed and there was insufficient capital to proceed any further.

The Birmingham and Fazeley Canal was authorised 13 years later, in 1784, which would join the Coventry Canal at Fazeley Junction. Prior to obtaining their Act of Parliament, they negotiated with several other canals, in order to ensure that significant trade would be generated once it was opened. The Oxford Canal agreed to complete their line, to link up with the River Thames at Oxford, and the remaining length of the Coventry Canal would be built in three sections. The Coventry Canal would extend their existing line from Atherstone to Fazeley, which included the flight of locks at Atherstone and two more at Galscote. The Birmingham and Fazeley Canal would build the next section from Fazeley to Whittington Brook, and the final section from Whittington Brook to Fradley would be built by the Trent and Mersey Canal. In an unusual example of cooperation, the network was completed in 1790.