1790 Thomas Dadford surveyed a route for the canal
1791 Act of Parliament granted. Thomas Dadford Junior was appointed engineer; a lower cost route was followed than the original survey.
1792 Dadford resigned in order to work on the Monmouthshire Canal. He was replaced by Thomas Sheasby but he failed to complete the canal by the November 1793 deadline.
1795 The Neath Canal company completed the work and the canal was opened from Glynneath to Melincryddan, south of Neath,
1799 Extended to Giants Grave, in order to provide better shipping facilities.
Several small extensions made to reach the final destination at Briton Ferry.
1812 Neath Canal Company successfully brought a case against Francis Tappenden, manager of Abernant Iron Co, alleging that the Iron Co had been damaging the canal by 'scouring' since 1808, and against the Neath Abbey Iron Co that it had been doing so since 1807.
The canal was 13.5 miles long with 19 locks.
1818 George Tennant enlarged and reopened the Glan-y-wern Canal to provide a navigable link from the River Neath to the River Tawe at Swansea docks; Tennant built an extension to the Aberdulais basin, where it linked to the Neath Canal. Much of the Neath traffic used the Tennant Canal to access the better facilities at Swansea.
1930s Navigation of the canals ceased in the 1930s
See Also
Sources of Information
- Wikipedia [1]