The Stratford-upon-Avon Canal is a
canal
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...
in the south Midlands of England. The canal, which was built between 1793 and 1816, runs for in total, and consists of two sections. The dividing line is at Kingswood Junction, which gives access to the
Grand Union Canal
The Grand Union Canal in England is part of the British canal system. It is the principal navigable waterway between London and the Midlands. Starting in London, one arm runs to Leicester and another ends in Birmingham, with the latter st ...
. Following acquisition by a railway company in 1856, it gradually declined, the southern section being un-navigable by 1945, and the northern section little better.
The northern section was the setting for a high-profile campaign by the fledgling
Inland Waterways Association
The Inland Waterways Association (IWA) is a registered charity in the United Kingdom and was formed in 1946 to campaign for the conservation, use, maintenance, restoration and sensitive development of British Canals and river navigations.
Not ...
in 1947, involving the right of navigation under Tunnel Lane bridge, which required the
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
to jack it up in order to allow boats to pass. These actions saved the section from closure. The southern section was managed by the
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
from 1959, and restored by David Hutchings and the Stratford Canal Society between 1961 and 1964, after an attempt to close it was thwarted. The revived canal was re-opened by
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was the l ...
, and responsibility for it was transferred to
British Waterways
British Waterways, often shortened to BW, was a statutory corporation wholly owned by the government of the United Kingdom. It served as the navigation authority for the majority of canals and a number of rivers and docks in England, Scotland ...
in 1988.
Route
![Stratford-upon-Avon Canal Map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Stratford-upon-Avon_Canal_Map.png)
The Stratford-upon-Avon canal connects the
Worcester and Birmingham Canal
The Worcester and Birmingham Canal is a canal linking Birmingham and Worcester in England. It starts in Worcester, as an 'offshoot' of the River Severn (just after the river lock) and ends in Gas Street Basin in Birmingham. It is long.
There ar ...
at
Kings Norton
Kings Norton, alternatively King's Norton, is an area of Birmingham, England. Historically in Worcestershire, it was also a Birmingham City Council ward within the Government of Birmingham, England. The district lies 6.5 miles south-southwes ...
to the
River Avon at
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-we ...
in
Warwickshire
Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...
. It consists of two sections, divided by a junction which connects it to the
Grand Union Canal
The Grand Union Canal in England is part of the British canal system. It is the principal navigable waterway between London and the Midlands. Starting in London, one arm runs to Leicester and another ends in Birmingham, with the latter st ...
. The northern section from Kings Norton in the suburbs of
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
to Lapworth is level for the first , following the
Birmingham Level
The Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN), a network of narrow canals in the industrial midlands of England, is built on various water levels. The three longest are the Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and Walsall levels. Canal lock, Locks allow boats t ...
, but then descends quite rapidly through the Lapworth flight of 18 locks, to reach the junction. There is a choice of route to reach the Grand Union, as there are two locks side by side, one on the main line of the canal, and one on the branch, but a channel joins the bottom ends of both locks. The junction is almost exactly halfway along the canal.
The southern section continues the descent with the final seven of the Lapworth locks, passing under the
M40 motorway
The M40 motorway links London, Oxford and Birmingham in England, a distance of approximately .
The motorway is dual three lanes except for junction 1A to junction 3 (which is dual four lanes) a short section in-between the exit and entry slip-r ...
just before the final one. The locks are closely spaced until those at Preston Bagot are reached, after which there is a section with just one lock in the middle. This nearly-level section contains two of the canal's three iron aqueducts. The easy cruising is interrupted by the Wilmcote flight of eleven locks in just over a mile (1.6 km), soon after which the canal reaches Stratford-upon-Avon.
[
Along the route of the canal, there are a total of 54 narrow ]locks
Lock(s) may refer to:
Common meanings
*Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance
*Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal
Arts and entertainment
* ''Lock ...
.[ Near King's Norton Junction there is a disused stop lock, which used to prevent the canal taking water from the Worcester and Birmingham Canal when they were separately owned, but is now left permanently open. It is unusual in that it has two guillotine gates which are made of wood. When operational, they moved vertically in iron frames, and were counterbalanced by weights.] A barge lock connects the terminal basin (Bancroft Basin) with the River Avon.
Earlswood Lakes in Earlswood
Earlswood is a suburb of Redhill in Surrey, England, which lies on the A23 between Redhill (in the direction of London) and Horley (next to Gatwick Airport). Earlswood Common is a local nature reserve that separates the suburb from the sout ...
are feeder reservoir
A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation.
Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...
s to the canal. The three lakes were built between 1821 and 1822 and have a total capacity of 210 million gallons (950 megalitres (Ml)). The lakes consist of three separate pools; Terry's, Engine and Windmill Pool. They are retained by earth embankment. Until 1936 the water was pumped into the feeder by a beam engine, whose engine house can still be seen. The feeder was navigable for coal boats to reach the engine house and is now used for moorings.
Features
From Kings Norton Junction
Kings Norton Junction () is the name of the canal junction where the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal terminates and meets the Worcester and Birmingham Canal at Kings Norton, Birmingham, England.
History
The Worcester and Birmingham Canal was ...
at the northern end the canal immediately passes through the unusual King's Norton Stop Lock, the only guillotine-gated stop-lock on a canal.
After 3/4 mile is the only tunnel on the canal, at Brandwood. It is long, and like many canal tunnels it has no towpath; horses were walked over the hill and barges were pulled through the tunnel using a handrail on the wall of the tunnel, parts of which can still be seen.[
On the outskirts of ]Shirley
Shirley may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Shirley'' (novel), an 1849 novel by Charlotte Brontë
* ''Shirley'' (1922 film), a British silent film
* ''Shirley'' (2020 film), an American film
* ''Shirley'' (album), a 1961 album by Shirley Bas ...
the brick-built Major's Green
Major's Green is a village in the Wythall parish of Bromsgrove district and is the northeastern-most settlement in the county of Worcestershire, England.
The village is served by Whitlocks End railway station as well as bus service A4 to Solihul ...
Aqueduct carries the canal 10m above Aqueduct Road and the River Cole.
further south is the electrically operated Shirley Draw Bridge which carries Drawbridge Road over the canal. It is normally closed and can be opened using a British Waterways key. The northern section also has a swing bridge (no.2, normally left open), a lift bridge (no.28), and another drawbridge (no. 26), all operated manually.
On the southern section interesting features of the canal include the unique barrel-roofed lock keeper's cottages to be found south of Kingswood Junction. All but two have been swamped by large modern extensions, but those at locks 28 and 31 are still in something like their original state, neither of them have either electricity supply or mains water.
Many of the accommodation bridge
In the United Kingdom, an accommodation bridge or occupation bridge is one that preserves a pre-existing private road, path or right-of-way (transportation), right of access when a major transport route is built across it. Without the bridge, ac ...
s south of Kingswood Junction are split bridges of cast iron, with a central slot to accommodate the tow rope of horse-drawn boats.
The southern section of the canal passes over three cast iron aqueducts, unusual in that the towpaths are at the level of the canal bottom.[
Travelling south from Kingswood Junction, the first aqueduct is the modest Yarningale Aqueduct which carries the canal over a small stream near ]Preston Bagot
Preston Bagot is a village and civil parish in the Stratford district of Warwickshire, England, about west of the county town of Warwick. According to the 2001 census the population was 147, reducing to 127 at the 2011 census.
History
Pre ...
, Warwickshire. This cast iron aqueduct was built in 1834 to replace the original wooden structure which was washed away when the stream flooded that year.
The second is the Wootton Wawen Aqueduct, just outside Wootton Wawen
Wootton Wawen is a village and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. The village is on the A3400 in mid-western Warwickshire, about from Birmingham, about south of Henley-in-Arden and about north of Strat ...
, where the canal crosses the A3400 main road.
The third is the Edstone Aqueduct (also known as Bearley) which at ,[ is the longest in England.][ The aqueduct crosses a minor road, the Birmingham and North Warwickshire railway and also the trackbed of the former Alcester Railway. There was once a pipe from the side of the canal that enabled locomotives to draw water to fill the locomotives' tanks.
]
History
The Stratford-upon-Avon Canal was conceived as part of a network of canals which would allow coal from the Dudley Canal
The Dudley Canal is a canal passing through Dudley in the West Midlands of England. The canal is part of the English and Welsh connected network of navigable inland waterways, and in particular forms part of the popular Stourport Ring narrowboat ...
and the Stourbridge Canal to reach Oxford and London, without having to use the Birmingham canals, the management of which was seen as high-handed. An Act was passed on 28 March 1793 for the construction of a canal from a junction with the Worcester and Birmingham Canal
The Worcester and Birmingham Canal is a canal linking Birmingham and Worcester in England. It starts in Worcester, as an 'offshoot' of the River Severn (just after the river lock) and ends in Gas Street Basin in Birmingham. It is long.
There ar ...
in Kings Norton
Kings Norton, alternatively King's Norton, is an area of Birmingham, England. Historically in Worcestershire, it was also a Birmingham City Council ward within the Government of Birmingham, England. The district lies 6.5 miles south-southwes ...
to Stratford-upon-Avon. The Canal Company was empowered to raise £120,000 by issuing shares and an additional £60,000 if required. The route would take it close to Warwick and Birmingham Canal at Lapworth, but the act did not include any provision for a direct connection with it, or with the River Avon at Stratford. Negotiations started with the Warwick and Birmingham, and to second act was obtained on 19 May 1795, to allow a connecting link to be built, despite rather unfavourable terms imposed on through traffic by the other company.
Josiah Clowes
Josiah Clowes (1735–1794) was a noted English civil engineer and canal builder. His early years were spent running a canal carrying company with Hugh Henshall, and although he worked on some canal projects before 1783, that year marked his switc ...
was employed as the engineer, and construction began in November 1793, starting at the Kings Norton end. He was also working on the Dudley Canal's extension,[ and another four canal schemes at the same time, and was the first great tunnel engineer. He died in December of the following year, but work continued until the main line reached ]Hockley Heath
Hockley Heath is a large village and civil parish in the Arden area mostly within the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, West Midlands, England, incorporating the hamlet of Nuthurst, with a history dating back to the year 705 AD as a wood owne ...
in May 1796, one mile (1.6 km) short of the first lock at Lapworth. At this point, cutting ceased through lack of money, as the capital raised had all been spent.[ The Dudley Canal extension through the ]Lappal tunnel
The Lapal Tunnel (old spelling Lappal Tunnel) is a disused canal tunnel on the five mile dry section of the Dudley No. 2 Canal in the West Midlands, England. It takes its name from the settlement of Lapal.
History
The narrow brick-lined tu ...
was opened in early 1798, and with progress being made on the Warwick and Birmingham Canal, the Company obtained a third act of Parliament on 21 June 1799, which allowed it to raise more money, and included a diversion of the route further to the east near Lapworth, so that the length of the connecting link to the Warwick and Birmingham was only about . Work restarted in 1799 under a new engineer called Samuel Porter, a former assistant of Clowes. He continued as far as Kingswood Junction, which was formally opened on 24 May 1802, after which cutting again ceased.[
]
Southern section
Construction only recommenced in 1812, under the leadership of William James of Stratford. James, who had owned shares in the Company since 1793, had a wide interest in turnpike roads and railways, and following a tour of the north of England between 1802 and 1804, on which he investigated railways and canals, he expanded his business interests to include coal mining. He rose to become chairman of the Canal Company, and personally bought the Upper Avon Navigation in 1813. He wanted to create a through route between the River Severn
, name_etymology =
, image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG
, image_size = 288
, image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle
, map = RiverSevernMap.jpg
, map_size = 288
, map_c ...
and the Midlands, and so the Canal Company obtained a further act of Parliament on 12 May 1815, which authorised a connection between the canal and the Avon at Stratford, as well as enabling them to build reservoirs at Earlswood
Earlswood is a suburb of Redhill in Surrey, England, which lies on the A23 between Redhill (in the direction of London) and Horley (next to Gatwick Airport). Earlswood Common is a local nature reserve that separates the suburb from the sout ...
. The canal reached Stratford in June 1816 and a connection with the River Avon was made. The total cost of the canal had been around £297,000.[
The southern section of the canal never realised James' ambitions, as the Upper Avon was too tortuous and prone to floods to be a reliable through route. He spent some £6,000 on improvements to the Upper Avon locks in 1822, but over-reached himself, and was declared bankrupt shortly afterwards. For a while the upper river was managed by a syndicate of seven people, all connected with the canal, and the Canal Company took out a lease of it from 1842 for five years. Trade was mainly coal, which was conveyed from Stratford to ]Evesham
Evesham () is a market town and parish in the Wychavon district of Worcestershire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is located roughly equidistant between Worcester, Cheltenham and Stratford-upon-Avon. It lies within the Vale of Evesha ...
.[
Traffic steadily built up, although tolls were low, to offset the costs imposed on goods passing through Kingswood Junction to the Warwick and Birmingham Canal. On the southern section, coal was taken to Stratford, from where it was sold, or passed along the Upper Avon or the Stratford and Moreton Tramway. Modest dividends were paid to shareholders from 1824, and the total traffic carried in 1838 was 181,708 tons, on which profits of £6,835 were made.][ In 1845, the company agreed to sell the canal to the ]Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway
The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (OW&WR) was a railway company in England. It built a line from Wolvercot JunctionThe nearby settlement is spelt ''Wolvercote'' and a later station on the LNWR Bicester line follows that spelling. ...
, who were also keen to purchase the Stratford and Moreton Tramway. It was not until January 1856 that the transaction was finally completed, and another year before the railway company took over day-to-day running. Another change of ownership occurred in 1863, when the railway company was absorbed by the Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
. Traffic gradually decreased, but the fall in receipts was faster than the fall in tonnage, as the railway took the long-distance loads.
Decline and restoration
By the late 1930s the southern section had become derelict, although a water supply was maintained, which the GWR used to supply its engine shed in Stratford. The northern section was never officially closed, but traffic had virtually ceased by 1939. It was blocked when bridge no. 2, the Tunnel Lane lift bridge at Lifford, became faulty, and was replaced by the GWR with a fixed bridge which left insufficient height for a boat to pass.
After Lord Methuen raised the issue in the House of Lords in 1947, and was assured that the bridge ''"would be lifted at any time on notice of intended passage being given"'', Tom Rolt
Lionel Thomas Caswall Rolt (usually abbreviated to Tom Rolt or L. T. C. Rolt) (11 February 1910 – 9 May 1974) was a prolific English writer and the biographer of major civil engineering figures including Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Thomas Tel ...
of the Inland Waterways Association
The Inland Waterways Association (IWA) is a registered charity in the United Kingdom and was formed in 1946 to campaign for the conservation, use, maintenance, restoration and sensitive development of British Canals and river navigations.
Not ...
(IWA) announced that he intended to pass under the bridge on 20 May 1947. Despite difficulties with the state of the canal, and the fact that the accompanying boat provided by the GWR got stuck, the bridge was reached. It had been jacked up and was resting on heavy timbers. Robert Aickman
Robert Fordyce Aickman (27 June 1914 – 26 February 1981) was an English writer and conservationist. As a conservationist, he co-founded the Inland Waterways Association, a group which has preserved from destruction and restored England's inl ...
, another of the founders of the IWA, had organised press coverage, and the story was reported in the national newspapers. IWA members were then encouraged to use the route.[ Eric de Mare repeated the exercise in 1948, using a converted army pontoon. A horse-drawn ice breaker was used to create a channel through the weed on this occasion,][ and the following year, ]Peter Scott
Sir Peter Markham Scott, (14 September 1909 – 29 August 1989) was a British ornithologist, conservationist, painter, naval officer, broadcaster and sportsman. The only child of Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott, he took an interest in ...
asked for the bridge to be lifted. In 1950, the bridge, which had become known as Lifford Bridge, or Lifford Lane Bridge, was replaced with a working swing bridge.[ The northern section of the canal was saved from dereliction by such pioneering efforts.][ The bridge has now been removed altogether.
]
By the 1950s, the southern section was un-navigable by canal boats, as several of the locks could not be operated, and some of the small pounds between the locks of the Wilmcote flight were dry.[ Problems with a bridge also began the process of restoring this section. Warwickshire County Council sought to obtain legal abandonment of the canal in 1958, as they wished to replace bridge 59 at Wilmcote without the expense of providing navigable headroom. A campaign against closure was mounted by the Inland Waterways Association and local activists. Two canoeists, who had used the canal recently, produced a dated toll ticket for their journey, which was offered as proof that the canal was not disused.][ Retention of the canal was announced on 22 May 1959, and by 16 October, the ]British Transport Commission
The British Transport Commission (BTC) was created by Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government as a part of its nationalisation programme, to oversee railways, canals and road freight transport in Great Britain (Northern Ireland had the se ...
and the National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
reported that they had agreed on the terms of a lease, under which the National Trust would be responsible for the restoration and maintenance of the southern section. The transfer of responsibility took place on 29 September 1960, and work began in March 1961. Although the Transport Commission made a contribution towards the cost,[ the National Trust raised most of the £42,000 required to put it back into good order. The project was managed by David Hutchings,][ who pioneered the use of voluntary labour, which would be used on many subsequent restorations, and assistance was also given by prisoners from ]Winson Green
Winson Green is a loosely defined inner-city area in the west of the city of Birmingham, England. It is part of the ward of Soho.
It is the location of HM Prison Birmingham (known locally as Winson Green Prison or "the Green") and of City Hospi ...
prison, the Army and the RAF Airfield Construction Branch. The canal was fully navigable by mid-1964, and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was the l ...
officially re-opened it on 11 July.[ Its restoration was a turning point for the waterways movement in Britain.
The National Trust charged a private toll fee for navigation. Ten years after the re-opening, the Queen Mother performed the same ceremony for the Upper Avon Navigation, which had been derelict for more than a century, and the canal became part of a through route to the River Severn once more. In 1986, the National Trust indicated that they would like to hand control of the canal back to the ]British Waterways Board
British Waterways, often shortened to BW, was a statutory corporation wholly owned by the government of the United Kingdom. It served as the navigation authority for the majority of canals and a number of rivers and docks in England, Scotland a ...
, and held discussions on 7 October 1986. The canal was transferred on 1 April 1988, authorised by an order of the Secretary of State, which provided £1.5 million, phased over five years, to enable the canal to be brought up to standard.
Points of interest
See also
* Stratford and Moreton Tramway
*Avon Ring
The Avon Ring is a canal ring which is located to the south west of Birmingham in England, and connects the major towns of Stratford-upon-Avon, Evesham, Tewkesbury, Worcester and the southern outskirts of Birmingham. It consists of stretches o ...
images & map of mile markers seen along the Stratford on Avon canal
Bibliography
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stratford-Upon-Avon Canal
Canals in England
Canals in Warwickshire
Canals opened in 1816
1816 establishments in England