A brief visit to a brief canal

Monday, 18 April 2011 19:47

Well,  it is the start of a canal anyway! The Wilts and Berks Canal restoration from its junction with the Thames at Abingdon is not possible now. The old line has been built over here:

Wilts and Berks old Junction

So a new proposal is now "on the cards", to join with the old line downstream from Abingdon, near Culham Cut. We went exploring ......

...the Wilts and Berks Canal - and that is its official name as a lazy clerk could not be bothered to write the county names in full in the Act of Parliament granting the company the right to build the canal.

Semmington Junction on the Kennet and Avon Canal in 2007

It ran from Semmington Junction on the K and A, via Melksham, Calne, Chippenham, Wootton Bassett, Swindon, Farringdon and Wantage to Abingdon. Carrying narrow barges with coal for the Oxford and London market, it also enabled the   regional export of agricultural produce and such locally produced goods as bricks, building stone, clay pipes,...etc. The link with the North Wilts and the Thames and Severn Canals meant that the northern route avoided the more difficult navigation of the Thames above Abingdon.   

Opened in 1810, it took 15 years to build and was abandoned in 1914. More details of the history - clickety click. Fortunately, as most of the canal was rural, the line can easily be traced. The more urban areas require new routes: many of the locks have been filled in and the M4 crosses near Swindon. The Wilts and Berks Canal Trust hope to have the restoration completed by 2025, in partnership with BW, EA and the relevant Town Councils.

So what did we find?

I think the photos below probably say it all -

Jubilee Junction - The Thames meets the Wilts and Berks Canal

Turning into the Cut - known as White Horse Cut

White Horse Cut

Winding hole - as far as a boat can go at the moment

This link will take you to the "breakthrough" to the Thames in 2006 and pictures of the "new" cut. It certainly looks different now! I wonder if there have been as many boats on it in total since the Grand Opening in August of that year!

We were certainly the first narrowboat that had moored there for a while I suspect!

Moored at the end of White Horse Cut.

There is not much more to see - to the right of Epiphany, beyond a fence and alongside what was once a gravel pit which appears to be private, is the proposed line of the restoration.