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The Lagan Canal was a canal built to connect Belfast to Lough Neagh. The first section, which is a river navigation, was opened in 1763, and linked Belfast to Lisburn. The second section from Lisburn to Lough Neagh includes a small amount of river navigation, but was largely built as a canal. At its peak it was one of the most successful of the Irish canals,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=About The Canal )〕 but ultimately it was unable to compete with road and rail transport, and the two sections were closed in 1954 and 1958. The central section from Sprucefield to Moira was destroyed by the construction of the M1 motorway in the 1960s. Responsibility for most of its remains passed first to the Department of Agriculture and then to the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, although the section between Aghalee Bridge and Lough Neagh, including the final ten locks, passed into private ownership. There is an active campaign to re-open the canal, including reinstatement of the central section. ==History== The River Lagan at Moira is only from Lough Neagh, the largest inland lake in the British Isles, and the terrain between the two is relatively flat. In 1637, the first suggestions that a navigable link could be constructed were made, but no action was taken at the time. Following the discovery of coal deposits in east Tyrone, which resulted in the construction of the Newry Canal, there was renewed interest, and in 1741 Arthur Dobbs, the Surveyor General, surveyed the route. Another twelve years elapsed before a petition was presented to the Irish House of Commons, which resulted in an Act of Parliament being passed on 24 October 1753 to authorise the work. The engineer Acheson Johnston estimated that making the River Lagan navigable to Moira and then building a navigable cut to Lough Neagh would cost £20,000. Since 1729, all such work was managed by the Commissioners of Inland Navigation for Ireland, but the funds at their disposal were limited. The canal was therefore funded by imposing an extra tax on alcohol sold in the districts through which the canal would pass, which amounted to one penny per gallon on ale and fourpence on spirits. The tax would last for eleven years from 1753, and on this basis, work began in 1756. The engineer overseeing the project was Thomas Omer, and some of river had been made navigable within the first year. The work included new cuts to remove meandering sections of the river, four locks, the removal of shoals, and the construction of a towpath. The Irish Parliament gave additional grants of £4,000 towards the project in 1759 and 1761, and the navigation was completed as far as Lisburn in 1763. A formal opening took place in September, when the ''Lord Hertford'', a 60-ton lighter, loaded with 45 tons of coal and timber, made the journey from Belfast to Lisburn. A small additional section to Sprucefield had been completed by 1765, but work then stopped. Around £40,000 had been spent on the project, but it was evident that using the river was not ideal, as it was subject to flooding in winter, and there was a linen bleaching industry along its course, who objected to the navigation commissioners having control of the flow of the river. In 1768, the engineer Robert Whitworth, who by this time was James Brindley's chief surveyor and draughtsman, was asked to assess the project. He reported that the river section was not suitable for navigation, and should be replaced by a canal, for which he suggested two routes and a cost of £22,000, and that beyond Sprucefield the navigation should be constructed as a canal, either on the north bank of the Lagan, or on the south, which would involve building an aqueduct at Spencer's Bridge to cross the river. Although attempts were made to raise the necessary finance, and two Acts of Parliament were obtained in 1772 and 1774, to give additional powers to local commissioners, no real progress was made, and in 1779, the 'Company of Undertakers of the Lagan Navigation' was formed. The Marquess of Donegall was the chief shareholder, and most other members were either landed gentry or drawn from the nobility, and so had considerable financial resources. In June 1782, Richard Owen, who had worked on the construction of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal for ten years agreed to oversee the project for four years. The company had insufficient capital to build a new canal below Lisburn, nor to fund the northern route to Lough Neagh, and so construction started on the southern route. The four Union Locks raised boats from the river to a summit level, which followed a course due west, and then turned to the north west to cross the Lagan. The aqueduct cost £3,000 and took nearly three years to build. Progress was much slower than expected, but Aghalee was reached in March 1792, ten years after Owen began work. Initially, goods were transferred between the canal and the shore of the lough by road, for the final connection was not completed until December 1793. The Marquess of Donegall opened the canal on 1 January 1794, by travelling from Owen's house at Moira to Lough Neagh by boat. He had funded most of the £62,000 cost himself. The summit level was long, with a flight of 10 locks, each at Aghalee, and four at Sprucefield. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lagan Canal」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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