Horse-drawn canal boats made up the early British Industrial Revolution’s transportation network. But they presented a tough problem: how to get a horse from one bank of a canal to another, without disconnecting the rope?

Smabs Sputzer [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Sometimes the roads switched banks, which meant you needed to get the horse from one side to the other. Sure you could disconnect the horse, cross a bridge, and then reconnect it on the other side. But if you had a roving bridge, you didn’t need to disconnect it at all.

The specific design varies – some had a gap in the middle, others turned the horse around completely and looped underneath itself (as in the picture above). But they’re damn clever either way.

• Roving bridge

Categories: Economics & business Europe History Modern history Places Sciences Technology

The Generalist

I live in Auckland, New Zealand, and am curious about most things.