Seven Arches Aqueduct

A day or so in Leeds and a pleasant walk beside the Adel Beck, through woodland still in full autumn colour.

The Seven Arches Aqueduct was built in 1841 and 1842 to carry water from Eccup Reservoir to the Headingley treatment works, giving Leeds its first piped public supply. Its curved stone conduit crosses the Meanwood Valley near Adel on seven arches, each 10 metres wide¹Source: Information board beside the aqueduct..

The scheme succeeded rather too well. By 1851 some 22,700 homes were connected, and demand outgrew the structure, which was decommissioned in 1866. An underground iron pipe of 40 inches in diameter replaced it, and a second followed in 1891. Several pipes still run beside the aqueduct and carry half of the water used in Leeds, while the old structure itself has nothing left to do.

In the late 1990s it was discovered that forces within the stonework had tipped it to a lean close to that of “the Leaning Tower of Pisa”. Collapse looked likely, so its owner, Yorkshire Water, commissioned stabilisation work, which won an Historic Bridge Award in 2000. The aqueduct is now a Grade II listed structure.

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  Source: Information board beside the aqueduct. ↩︎