DescriptionA pair of 1840s two storey semi-detached brick-built canal workers' cottages, part of a larger group constructed from the south end of the Chirk Aqueduct for several hundred metres towards the Chirk bank road bridge. As with many canal workers houses these are built on land rendered unusable at the time of canal construction by having spoil dumped on it. In this particular case it is the huge volume of earth from the canal being cut into the hillside so as to be able to approach the south end of the 70ft high Chirk aqueduct. The wide platform on which the houses and their sizeable gardens stand indicated the scale of earth moving achieved at this particular point. The houses may have replaced the earlier canal associated housing at Chirk Bank bridge to the east. Canal workers still live in these houses with canal maintenance boats parked on the canal outside.
Iaian Wright and Stephen R. Hughes, RCAHMW, 25 May 2007