![Stroudwater Navigationmap1933](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Stroudwater_Navigationmap1933.jpg)
The Stroudwater Navigation 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 Gloucestershire, England which linked
Stroud
Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021.
Below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the Five ...
to 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 ...
. It was authorised in 1776, although part had already been built, as the proprietors believed that an Act of Parliament obtained in 1730 gave them the necessary powers. Opened in 1779, it was a commercial success, its main cargo being coal. It was in length and had a rise of through 12
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 ...
.
Following the opening of the
Thames and Severn Canal
The Thames and Severn Canal is a canal in Gloucestershire in the south-west of England, which was completed in 1789. It was conceived as part of a cargo route from Bristol and the Midlands to London, linking England's two largest rivers for bett ...
in 1789, it formed part of a through route from
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
to
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, although much of its trade vanished when the
Kennet and Avon Canal
The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of , made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than solely to the cent ...
provided a more direct route in 1810. Despite competition from the railways, the canal continued to pay dividends to shareholders until 1922, and was not finally abandoned until 1954. A full restoration is in progress, expected to reopen in 2025.
Even before its closure, there was interest in retaining the canal for its amenity value. The Stroudwater Canal Society, which later became the
Cotswold Canals Trust
The Cotswold Canals Trust is a British registered charity that aims to protect and restore the Stroudwater Navigation and the Thames and Severn Canal. Formed in 1972, the organisation has a goal to restore navigability on the two waterways be ...
, was formed in 1972. Following initial hostility from the Proprietors, who had not been stripped of their powers when the canal had closed, agreement was reached and work began on restoration of the waterway. The project gained popularity, and in 2003, a bid was made to the
Heritage Lottery Fund
The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom.
History
The fund's predecessor bodies were ...
for £82 million to restore both the Stroudwater Navigation and the Thames and Severn Canal. The project had to be split into smaller parts, and only the first phase has so far been funded in this way, when a grant of £11.9 million was confirmed in 2006. With match funding, this enabled the section from 'The Ocean' at Stonehouse to Wallbridge to be reopened, together with the Wallbridge to Hope Mill section of the Thames and Severn.
A second bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the connection from Stonehouse to the
Gloucester and Sharpness Canal
The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal (also known as the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal) is a ship canal in the west of England, between Gloucester and Sharpness; for much of its length it runs close to the tidal River Severn, but cuts off a sign ...
at Saul was rejected in 2007. This section presented some engineering challenges, as it was severed by the construction of the
M5 motorway
The M5 is a motorway in England linking the Midlands with the South West England, South West. It runs from junction 8 of the M6 motorway, M6 at West Bromwich near Birmingham to Exeter in Devon. Heading south-west, the M5 runs east of West Brom ...
and the
A38 road
The A38, parts of which are known as Devon Expressway, Bristol Road and Gloucester Road, Bristol, Gloucester Road, is a major A-class trunk road in England.
The road runs from Bodmin in Cornwall to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. It is long, mak ...
. The roundabout where the A38 joins the
A419 road
The A419 road is a primary route between Chiseldon near Swindon at junction 15 of the M4 with the A346 road, and Whitminster in Gloucestershire, England near the M5 motorway. The A419 is managed and maintained by a private company, Road Mana ...
was built over Bristol Road Lock, and part of the route was destroyed by flood relief work for the
River Frome, while at Stonehouse, the bridge carrying the
Bristol and Gloucester Railway
The Bristol and Gloucester Railway was a railway company opened in 1844 to run services between Bristol and Gloucester. It was built on the , but it was acquired in 1845 by the Midland Railway, which also acquired the Birmingham and Gloucester R ...
had been replaced by a culvert. A bid to the newly formed Gloucestershire Local Transport Board for its reinstatement, and to create a long-distance footpath along the route was rejected, but in 2019 the Heritage Lottery Fund made a further grant of £8.9 million towards the section from Ocean to Saul.
Highways England
National Highways, formerly the Highways Agency and later Highways England, is a government-owned company charged with operating, maintaining and improving motorways and major A roads in England. It also sets highways standards used by all fo ...
also made a grant of £4 million, to fund the construction of the canal under the A38 roundabout, and it is expected that the Stroud section will be linked to the national waterways network at Saul Junction by 2025. Outside the main restoration, the Cotswold Canals Trust are gradually restoring many of the other structures, with the ultimate goal of re-opening a link between the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
and 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 ...
.
History
Construction
The first plans for making the small
River Frome, also known as the Stroudwater, navigable date back to the last three years of the 17th century. The plan was to serve the
woollen
Woolen (American English) or woollen (Commonwealth English) is a type of yarn made from carded wool. Woolen yarn is soft, light, stretchy, and full of air. It is thus a good insulator, and makes a good knitting yarn. Woolen yarn is in contrast t ...
industry, by carrying coal from the Severn to Stroud and transporting the finished cloth away to markets, but it was opposed by mill owners, and it came to nothing. The idea was revived in 1728, when
John Hore
John HoreAlternative spellings of Hore's surname include "Hoar" and "Hoare" (baptised 13 March 1680 – 12 April 1763Other sources give Hore's year of birth as 1690, and year of death as 1762) was an English engineer, best known for making the Ri ...
, who had previously succeeded in making the
River Kennet
The Kennet is a tributary of the River Thames in Southern England. Most of the river is straddled by the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The lower reaches have been made navigable as the Kennet Navigation, which â ...
navigable, suggested a canal around long, with 12 locks, suitable for 60-ton barges. An
Act of Parliament
Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...
was obtained in 1730, with support from those who worked in the cloth industry, but opposition from some of the millers, but it seemed to ignore Hore's recommendations, in that it was again based on making the river navigable. As the millers were given powers that would have effectively shut the navigation for two months each year, and the tolls were set at a level that would have discouraged traffic, no further action was taken.
John Dallaway, who had been appointed as a commissioner under the 1730 Act, commissioned the engineer
Thomas Yeoman
Thomas Yeoman (1709 or 1710 – 23 January 1781) was a millwright, surveyor and civil engineer who played a significant part in the early industrial revolution and became the first president of the first engineering society in the world, the So ...
to make a new survey in 1754, and his new plan was published the following year. It was for a navigation from Wallbridge to the Severn, estimated to cost £8,145, which would require 16 locks and four stanks (which were probably half-locks or staunches). In order to placate the millers, water for the operation of the locks would be provided by a reservoir below Wallbridge, which would cover and be filled on Sundays, when the mills were inactive and would not be needing the water. Tolls were set at a more realistic level. While support and finance for the scheme were being gained, John Kemmett, Arthur Wynde, James Pynock and Thomas Bridge devised a scheme which used cranes at each mill weir to transfer cargo, stored in boxes, from a boat on one level to another on the other side of the weir. An Act was obtained in 1759 which authorized Kemmett and the others to construct the canal without any locks to avoid loss of water to the mills.
[ The Act allowed two years for completion of the scheme, and although some progress had been made by April 1761, Kemmett was given an extension of six years at that time. After about of river had been improved, the works were abandoned as being too costly.
By 1774, canal building was much better understood, and a new attempt was made. The plan was led by Dallaway's son William, who asked ]Thomas Dadford Jr.
Thomas Dadford Jr. (ca. 1761 to 1801) was an England, English canal engineer, who came from a family of canal engineers. He first worked with his father in the north of Britain on the Stour and the Trent, but later independently, contributing to ...
(the engineer on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal is a navigable narrow canal in Staffordshire and Worcestershire in the English Midlands. It is long, linking the River Severn at Stourport in Worcestershire with the Trent and Mersey Canal at Haywoo ...
) and John Priddy (who had been the engineer on the Droitwich Canal
The Droitwich Canal is a synthesis of two canals in Worcestershire, England; the Droitwich Barge Canal and the Droitwich Junction Canal. The Barge Canal is a broad canal which opened in 1771 linking Droitwich Spa to the River Severn at Hawford ...
during its construction) to carry out a survey. The cost of a canal which avoided the river and hence the mills, was put at £16,750, and soon £20,000 had been raised. Deciding that they did not need a new Act of Parliament, since the powers of the 1730 Act were still valid, Yeoman, who had carried out the 1754 survey, was asked to survey the route again, and a route was selected, which would require 12 locks. Work started, with Samuel Jones as engineer, but he was replaced by Priddy within a month. A challenge to the legality of building a canal under the 1730 Act was mounted by landowners and millers in 1775. An injunction was obtained, and the Gloucestershire Assizes
The courts of assize, or assizes (), were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes e ...
ruled that the Act did not cover the work. A new Act was obtained on 25 March 1776, authorising the raising of £20,000 and an extra £10,000 if required. Both sides commissioned the writing of poems to support their causes.
Work resumed under the supervision of Priddy, but he was soon replaced by Edmund Lingard, who had been the engineer for the Coventry Canal
The Coventry Canal is a navigable narrow canal in the Midlands of England.
It starts in Coventry and ends to the north at Fradley Junction, just north of Lichfield, where it joins the Trent and Mersey Canal. It also has connections with the ...
. The canal was opened in stages as it was completed. It reached Chippenham Platt at the end of 1777, Ryeford in January 1779, and it was open throughout to the Wallbridge terminus on 21 July 1779. It had cost £40,930, which had been raised by calling £150 on each £100 share, by borrowing money from the shareholders, by running up debts, and by using the tolls from the parts of the canal which were already open. Traffic was around 16,000 tons per year, which enabled the company to repay the debts and to declare a first dividend of five per cent in 1786.
Operation
The locks were suitably sized for Severn Trow
A trow was a type of cargo boat found in the past on the rivers Severn and Wye in Great Britain and used to transport goods.
Features
The mast could be taken down so that the trow could go under bridges, such as the bridge at Worcester and ...
s, which were , and could carry 60 tons. The canal was not provided with a towing path
A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge. This mode of transport w ...
for horses. Some boats sailed along the canal, but most were bow-hauled by men. Framilode
Framilode is a village on the banks of the River Severn in Gloucestershire, England, in the parish of Fretherne with Saul. It consists of two settlements: the larger, Framilode, is at the mouth of the River Frome. The smaller settlement, Fra ...
lock at the entrance to the canal was a tide lock, with multiple gates to cope with all states of the tide. When a vessel arrived at the junction, a rope would be taken from it to the shore, and attached to a capstan, which would then be used to haul the boat into the lock. Once the canal was open, the Proprietors worked hard to improve the facilities, and a number of warehouses were built. Many of the shareholders were also involved with the Thames and Severn Canal
The Thames and Severn Canal is a canal in Gloucestershire in the south-west of England, which was completed in 1789. It was conceived as part of a cargo route from Bristol and the Midlands to London, linking England's two largest rivers for bett ...
scheme, which was completed in 1789 and provided a through route between Wallbridge and the River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
at Lechlade
Lechlade () is a town at the southern edge of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England, south of Birmingham and west of London. It is the highest point at which the River Thames is navigable, although there is a right of navigation that contin ...
. The navigation was seen as a commercial waterway; pleasure boats were discouraged by the imposition of a charge of £1 (in 2020: £) for the use of each lock.
The main cargo carried was coal. In 1788, a group of shareholders set up a coal committee, and began trading. At first, the product came from the Staffordshire coalfields, travelling via the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal is a navigable narrow canal in Staffordshire and Worcestershire in the English Midlands. It is long, linking the River Severn at Stourport in Worcestershire with the Trent and Mersey Canal at Haywoo ...
, or from the Shropshire coalfields, but this was later supplemented by coal from the south Gloucestershire mines and then the Forest of Dean
The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and northwest, Herefordshire to the n ...
. This profitable business continued until 1833. Boats that worked the canal included Severn Trows, a type of sailing boat which was fitted with ketch
A ketch is a two- masted sailboat whose mainmast is taller than the mizzen mast (or aft-mast), and whose mizzen mast is stepped forward of the rudder post. The mizzen mast stepped forward of the rudder post is what distinguishes the ketch fr ...
, cutter or sloop
A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...
rigging. Many were later converted for use as dumb barges by removing the masts, but none are known to have survived to the present day.
In 1794, a basin was built above Framilode lock, so that vessels could wait there until the tide in the Severn was at a suitable level. This had been requested by the Thames and Severn Canal company, but requests for a horse towing path in 1799 and 1812 were dismissed as too expensive. They eventually provided one after the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal had been built, and the canal was the only part of the waterway from Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...
on the Severn to Teddington
Teddington is a suburb in south-west London in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. In 2021, Teddington was named as the best place to live in London by ''The Sunday Times''. Historically in Middlesex, Teddington is situated on a long m ...
on the Thames that did not have one. It was completed in August 1827. The opening of the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal in 1825 required a slight diversion where they crossed at Saul, and the levels were adjusted by building a new lock on the Stroudwater below the junction, to ensure neither company lost water to the other; the new company paid for its construction. After the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal opened to Sharpness
Sharpness ( ) is an English port in Gloucestershire, one of the most inland in Britain, and eighth largest in the South West. It is on the River Severn at , at a point where the tidal range, though less than at Avonmouth downstream ( typical sp ...
in 1827, the link between Saul and the Severn at Framilode was used much less, although coal from the Forest of Dean still used that route.
Traffic, receipts and dividends steadily increased. Tolls rose from £1,468 in 1779 to £6,807 in 1821. The first dividend of 3.75 per cent was paid in 1786, and had reached 15.78 per cent by 1821. Figures for tonnage are not available for the early years, but were 79,359 tons in 1821. There was a dip in the carriage of merchandise in 1810, when the Kennet and Avon Canal
The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of , made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than solely to the cent ...
opened and provided a more convenient route from Bristol to London, but it picked up again after 1819, when the North Wilts Canal opened, providing a link from Latton near Cricklade to Abingdon via Swindon
Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon un ...
and the Wilts and Berks Canal
The Wilts & Berks Canal is a canal in the historic counties of Wiltshire and Berkshire, England, linking the Kennet and Avon Canal at Semington near Melksham, to the River Thames at Abingdon. The North Wilts Canal merged with it to become a b ...
, which was easier than using the Thames. The highest dividend paid was in 1833, when shareholders received 26.33 per cent, after which receipts and dividends steadily dropped. In 1859, in order to allow the passage of a coal barge called the ''Queen Esther'', two of the locks were widened.
Decline
The first threat from a railway came in 1825, when there was a proposal for a line from Framilode Passage to Brimscombe Port. The canal tolls were reduced as a bargaining tool, but the promoters went ahead with their bill. The Stroudwater Company opposed it and it was defeated in Parliament. 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 ...
opened a line from Swindon to Gloucester in 1845, which passed through Stroud, but the effects on the canal were rather less than the effects on the Thames and Severn. However, in 1863 the Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway
The Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway was a short railway line in the county of Gloucestershire, England. It was promoted independently to connect the industrial town of Nailsworth to the main line railway network at Stonehouse. It opened in 186 ...
Act was passed, allowing the construction of a railway from Stonehouse to Dudbridge
Dudbridge is a suburb on the southern edge of Stroud in Gloucestershire, England.
History
Dudbridge gains its name from the first bridge in the location, which spanned the River Frome. This made it an important crossing point for traffic heading ...
and Nailsworth
Nailsworth is a town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, lying in one of the Stroud Valleys in the Cotswolds, on the A46 road (the Roman Fosse Way), south of Stroud and about north-east of Bristol and Bath. The parish had a populat ...
that directly competed with the canal.[ Dividends fell below 5 per cent after 1880, although they did not cease entirely until 1922.] Around the same time the connection to the Severn at Framilode
Framilode is a village on the banks of the River Severn in Gloucestershire, England, in the parish of Fretherne with Saul. It consists of two settlements: the larger, Framilode, is at the mouth of the River Frome. The smaller settlement, Fra ...
became blocked, leaving the connection to the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal as the only link between the canal and the River Severn. The last toll was paid in 1941, and most of the canal was formally abandoned by an Act of Parliament granted in 1954. Although this removed the need to maintain the waterway for navigation, the Company of Proprietors was not disbanded, and retained most of their other powers. It consists of those who now own the original shares, although over half of the shares were transferred to a Trust in the 1950s, which prevents hostile takeovers and ensures that the company will always be run for the benefit of the communities through which the canal passes. After the closure of the canal, the canal company continued to generate income for many years through the sale of water and some monies produced by property holdings.[
In the early 1970s, the weirs at Whitminster were modified, so that much of the water flowing down the River Frome could be diverted into the remains of the navigation, below Whitminster Lock, and from there into the ]Gloucester and Sharpness Canal
The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal (also known as the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal) is a ship canal in the west of England, between Gloucester and Sharpness; for much of its length it runs close to the tidal River Severn, but cuts off a sign ...
. This water is abstracted from the canal near Sharpness, and treated by Bristol Water
Bristol Water is a British water company which supplies 266 million litres of drinking water daily to over 1.2 million customers in a area centred on Bristol, England. It is regulated under the Water Industry Act 1991. Sewerage services in th ...
's Purton Treatment Works. Work on the Purton site began on 24 August 1970, and the works commenced operation in April 1973, providing a new water supply for Bristol.
Restoration
Interest in maintaining the canal for its amenity value began before the canal closed, with 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 ...
mounting a campaign to retain it when plans to close it were first announced in 1952. They were already formulating plans for the revival of the Thames and Severn Canal
The Thames and Severn Canal is a canal in Gloucestershire in the south-west of England, which was completed in 1789. It was conceived as part of a cargo route from Bristol and the Midlands to London, linking England's two largest rivers for bett ...
, which depended on the Stroudwater for its link to the River Severn. The National Parks Commission declared that it should be retained for its amenity value and beauty in 1954, but it was closed nevertheless.
The publication in 1972 of ''Lost Canals of England and Wales'', a book by Ronald Russell, resulted in a number of canal restoration societies being formed, as it gave details of 78 derelict canals, and suggested that the Stroudwater and Thames and Severn Canals should be restored. In 1974 the BBC featured an interview with a local resident, Michael Ayland, who proposed restoration of the waterway, and a chance discussion by him with a reporter for the ''Bristol Evening Post'' resulted in the newspaper carrying an article headlined "Exclusive: canal to be reopened to Stroud." Offers to help flooded in, and an initial public meeting had to be moved from the Stroud Subscription Rooms to the Ballroom, after it appeared that the expected attendance of 20 people might be exceeded. Some 300 people met in the Ballroom, and The Stroudwater Canal Society was formed. This was renamed the Stroudwater, Thames and Severn Canal Trust in April 1975 as the scope of the project expanded, and became the Cotswold Canals Trust
The Cotswold Canals Trust is a British registered charity that aims to protect and restore the Stroudwater Navigation and the Thames and Severn Canal. Formed in 1972, the organisation has a goal to restore navigability on the two waterways be ...
in July 1990. Although the Proprietors were initially hostile to the Trust, this gradually changed, and in 1979 granted them permission to start work on the section from Pike Bridge at Eastington to Ryeford, so that a trip-boat could be used on it. As attitudes softened, the Proprietors re-purchased sections of the waterway which had previously been sold off.[
]
Funding
In 2001, the Cotswold Canals Partnership was established, drawing together people representing the Proprietors, the Cotswold Canals Trust, councils at district and county level, and a number of other interested parties. This provided a suitable structure to drive the restoration forwards. In 2002, the waterway was identified as being of high priority in the Association of Inland Navigation Authorities
{{Use British English, date=July 2017
The Association of Inland Navigation Authorities (AINA) is an unincorporated membership organisation in the United Kingdom. Membership is available for navigation authorities in the United Kingdom who have le ...
report entitled ''Vision for Strategic Enhancement of Britain's Inland Navigation Network'', and was one of several new projects highlighted at 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 ...
' ''Unlocked and Unlimited'' conference held in March. The estimated cost of the project to restore both the Stroudwater Navigation and the Thames and Severn Canal was £82 million.
Having raised £100,000, the Cotswold Canals Trust lodged the money with the Waterways Trust, in the hope that it could be used as match funding for any grants that might be received. Andy Stumpf became the full-time Regeneration Programme Manager, working on a major bid application to the Heritage Lottery Fund
The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom.
History
The fund's predecessor bodies were ...
(HLF) to finance the restoration, and the canal was visited by Charles, Prince of Wales
Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to ...
, in his capacity as Patron of the Waterways Trust. A Heritage Survey, which cost £60,000 and was funded by 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 ...
, was carried out, as was a Community Development Plan and a Visitor Management Strategy, costing another £30,000, all of which were pre-requisites for the main HLF bid. By the time the bid was ready for submission, the HLF were under pressure for the funds they had, and asked British Waterways, who were heading up the application, to break the bid and the project into smaller phases. At the end of 2003, a provisional grant of £11.3 million was awarded by the HLF, to enable the restoration of the Stroudwater Navigation between Stonehouse and Wallbridge, and the Thames and Severn Canal between Wallbridge and Brimscombe Port. An additional £2.9 million was received from the European Inter-Regional budget for this first phase. By the time the grant was awarded in January 2006, it had risen to £11.9 million, and a further £6 million of match funding was received from the South West of England Regional Development Agency
The South West of England Regional Development Agency (SWRDA) was one of the nine Regional Development Agencies set up by the United Kingdom government in 1999. Its purpose was to lead the development of a sustainable economy in South West Engla ...
.[
As part of the process, the Proprietors leased the canal to British Waterways in 2005. However, British Waterways had to withdraw from the scheme in 2008, due to financial difficulties, and the role of project leader was taken over by ]Stroud District Council
Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021.
Below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the Five Va ...
. Following the reorganisation, the Stroud Valleys Canal Company was established[ in March 2009. It is a limited company, with two independent directors and three directors representing Stroud District Council, the Proprietors, and the Cotswold Canals Trust. Its purpose is to hold the assets for the canals, and its charitable status means that ]stamp duty land tax
Stamp duty in the United Kingdom is a form of tax charged on legal instruments (written documents), and historically required a physical stamp to be attached to or impressed upon the document in question. The more modern versions of the tax no l ...
does not have to be paid. The company will be responsible for management and maintenance of the canal once it is re-opened. In 2013, the Department for Transport was in the process of reorganising how funding for major transport schemes was managed, and this enabled Stroud District Council to submit a bid for £1.5 million to the newly formed Gloucestershire Local Transport Board to fund the replacement of the Ocean railway culvert with a bridge. A second application for £650,000 was made to enable part of the Thames and Severn Way long-distance footpath to be created, specifically, the section from Saul Junction to Chalford. The bids were not successful, however.
The effort to reconnect the restored section to the national network at Saul Junction was branded as ''Stroudwater Navigation Connected'', and another bid was put before the Heritage Lottery Fund. This was partially successful, when £842,800 was awarded to finance the development phase of the project. This paid for surveys, so that the future impact of the project could be measured, for detailed planning and investigative work, and for gaining approval for the project from the Environment Agency
The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and enha ...
and Natural England
Natural England is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, ...
. Providing that this work demonstrated that the project was achievable and that its costings were realistic, a further £9 million would be released in early 2020.
Development
The length to be restored in the first phase, known as Phase 1a, was around , and presented some of the biggest difficulties to restoration in the whole route.[ Through Dudbridge, the channel had been used as part of a flood relief scheme by the ]Environment Agency
The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and enha ...
. Water from the Slad Brook, which is culverted beneath Stroud, joins the Thames and Severn Canal a short distance above Lower Wallbridge Lock, the first on that canal, while the Painswick Stream joins above the Dudbridge locks, and the Ruscombe Brook joins between the two locks. The top gates of the locks had been replaced with concrete dams, which maintained the water level at normal flows around lower than the navigable levels. Below the A419
The A419 road is a primary route between Chiseldon near Swindon at junction 15 of the M4 with the A346 road, and Whitminster in Gloucestershire, England near the M5 motorway. The A419 is managed and maintained by a private company, Road Manag ...
Dudbridge Road bridge, the water was discharged into the River Frome. As a consequence of its flood relief function, the channel here is classified as a "main river". Designs for reinstatement of the canal had to accommodate large flows on this section, and included underground bywash culverts, capable of carrying the full flood flow of all three streams. A new weir which carries a towpath bridge was constructed where the water leaves the canal to enter the River Frome, and a set of floodgates was constructed beyond the weir, to protect the canal from high water levels.
In November 2007 work started to clear the canal between Ryeford Double Lock and Oil Mills Bridge. Oil Mills Bridge was rebuilt, with the brickwork left after its demolition being incorporated into the new bridge. By mid-2012, when the Inland Waterways Association held a trailboat festival on the refurbished canal, as part of an event called "Stroud on Water", over of canal from Ocean swingbridge to the bottom of Dudbridge Locks were open for navigation, as was a second section from the top of the locks to the bottom of Wallbridge Locks on the Thames and Severn Canal. As part of the restoration of the Dudbridge Locks, a hydro-electric installation was built. The scheme is expected to generate over 100 MWh per year, and income from the sale of the electricity to the national grid will help to fund ongoing maintenance of the canal.
An evaluation cruise was held on 10 November 2017, when the maintenance boat ''Wookey Hole'' carried three assessors from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the chief executive from Stroud District Council and their canal project manager, the Mayor of Stroud, and the Cotswold Canals Trust chief executive and vice-chair. It travelled from The Ocean at Stonebridge eastwards to Bowbridge Lock, with a stop for lunch at Upper Wallbridge Lock. The cruise enabled the assessors to view the work done and to sign off the Phase 1a project, bringing it to a conclusion.
''Cotswold Canals Connected''
The second phase of the restoration project, initially known as Phase 1b, was for the section from Stonehouse to the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal
The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal (also known as the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal) is a ship canal in the west of England, between Gloucester and Sharpness; for much of its length it runs close to the tidal River Severn, but cuts off a sign ...
at Saul Junction, which had been blocked by the M5 motorway
The M5 is a motorway in England linking the Midlands with the South West England, South West. It runs from junction 8 of the M6 motorway, M6 at West Bromwich near Birmingham to Exeter in Devon. Heading south-west, the M5 runs east of West Brom ...
and the A38 road
The A38, parts of which are known as Devon Expressway, Bristol Road and Gloucester Road, Bristol, Gloucester Road, is a major A-class trunk road in England.
The road runs from Bodmin in Cornwall to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. It is long, mak ...
. A bid for £16 million was submitted to the Living Landmarks Fund (part of the Big Lottery Fund
The National Lottery Community Fund, legally named the Big Lottery Fund, is a non-departmental public body responsible for distributing funds raised by the National Lottery for "good causes". Since 2004 it has awarded over £9 billion to ...
) in August 2006. An interim award of £250,000 was made to allow the bid to be developed, but the application was rejected in November 2007. Despite this setback, money for purchasing the land around the M5 and the A38 was part of the phase 1 grant by the HLF. Proposals for the A38 involved tunnelling under the Whitminster roundabout; the Bristol Road Lock was buried by the construction of the roundabout, and a new lock would be constructed to the east of it. There were two proposals for passing under the M5 motorway: one was for a new channel alongside the River Frome through an existing culvert, and the other was for a new wider culvert, nearer to the original line of the canal. Below this, the canal used to cross the Frome at Lockham Aqueduct but this was demolished in the 1970s, when the canal and river channel were combined as part of a flood defence scheme.
Bids for Heritage Lottery funding were rejected in May 2012 and November 2015. A revised bid was submitted in November 2017, and following criticism of the lack of investment by partners in the project, was backed by a promise of £3 million from Stroud District Council, £700,000 from Gloucestershire County Council and £675,000 from the Canal & River Trust
The Canal & River Trust (CRT), branded as in Wales, holds the guardianship of 2,000 miles of canals and rivers, together with reservoirs and a wide range of heritage buildings and structures, in England and Wales. Launched on 12 July 2012, the ...
, who also pledged practical support. In addition, the Cotswold Canals Trust offered financial assistance and volunteer labour. They contribute around 15,000 man hours of labour per year, and started work on channel clearance and investigative surveys on the Phase 1b section at the beginning of 2017, in advance of any funding package being available. The restoration of the section from Stonehouse to Stroud had, by 2017, attracted some £117 million of private investment into the canal corridor since work started in 2006. Additionally, a further £3 million was to be invested in infrastructure improvements at Brimscombe Port, the original terminus for the Phase 1a project, by Stroud District Council and the Homes and Communities Agency
Homes England is the non-departmental public body that funds new affordable housing in England. It was founded on 1 January 2018 to replace the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).
HCA in turn was established by the Housing and Regeneration Act 2 ...
.
In early 2016, work began on a £210,000 project to restore Junction Lock on the Old Stroudwater at Saul, after a grant of £75,000 was received from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The lock was not made navigable, as the original canal route to the river at Framilode is infilled beyond the bottom gates and not needed since the opening of the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, but new lock gates were fitted, interpretation signs erected, and access was improved. The structure was on the English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses.
The charity states that i ...
"Buildings at Risk" register prior to work starting.
By 2018, Phase 1b had been renamed the ''Cotswold Canals Connected'' project, as it would connect the isolated section restored under Phase 1a to the national network at Saul Junction. The Cotswold Canals Trust were given an award of £872,000 in 2018 by the Heritage Lottery Fund to enable them to plan the project, which it was estimated would cost some £23.4 million. The Heritage Lottery Fund were prepared to provide a large part of this, but the award depended on the Trust raising an additional £1 million to cover a gap in the total funding package. The project included reinstatement of the missing mile of canal destroyed by the building of the M5 motorway and the A38 roundabout, which buried Bristol Road Lock. In an unexpected turn of events, Highways England
National Highways, formerly the Highways Agency and later Highways England, is a government-owned company charged with operating, maintaining and improving motorways and major A roads in England. It also sets highways standards used by all fo ...
agreed to partially fund this part of the work, which would involve two tunnels, a substantial cutting, and two new locks. Their contribution of £4 million enabled work such as tunnelling, which cannot be done by volunteers, to be brought forward, speeding up the whole project. The money came from their Designated Funds programme, designed to leave a positive legacy for future generations, and would fund some of wildlife habitats to increase bio-diversity, improvements to flood protection in the area, and routes for cycling and walking, in addition to the reinstatement of the canal channel. Progress was rapid, and by late 2020 the channel beneath the roundabout had been constructed and filled with water, with the final stages of reinstating the roundabout well underway. At the Institution of Civil Engineers
The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, whi ...
South West Awards Ceremony 2021, the work was awarded the prize for the best new build project costing under £8 million, and also picked up the People's Choice Award, after an on-line vote.
The next major project was for Network Rail
Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...
to create a passage through the railway embankment at Ocean. With an £8.9 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and funding from other sources, this was initially expected to be carried out during the May bank holiday weekend in 2021. By early 2021, a large compound had been established close to the railway, where concrete components for the underbridge were being cast. However, investigations into the geology of the site revealed that the bridge would require deeper foundations than planned, and its installation was put back to the period between Christmas 2021 and New Year. Work began on 24 December 2021 after of the canal had been drained and fish moved to another part of the canal. Using the largest mobile crane available in Britain, to ensure that the operation was unlikely to be interrupted by high winds, the eight concrete box sections forming the bridge, with their associated wing walls and parapets, had been craned into position by 29 December so that rebuilding of the railway embankment could begin. The project was completed on time, and the railway was fully reinstated by 4am on 1 January 2022. The reinstatement of the canal involved constructing a clay lining and realignment of the towpath, followed by a programme of tree planting on the banks. This work was not completed until May, and an official opening took place on 23 May 2022. The new bridge won an award at the Institution of Civil Engineers at the 2022 South West Civil Engineering Awards ceremony for the best new build project costing under £8 million.
In a separate project, Severn Trent Water
Severn Trent plc is a water company based in Coventry, England. It supplies 4.6 million households and business across the Midlands and Wales.
It is traded on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Severn Trent, the ...
started a £25 million upgrade to the sewerage system in Stroud in 2021. One of the driving forces for the project was the fact that the main sewer passed through the canal just below Wallbridge lock, severely restricting the depth of water at that point, and the Proprietors argued that Severn Trent had not obtained permission to put the pipe there. Over of main sewer will be replaced by a larger diameter pipe, which will pass under the canal at a lower level, enabling boats that could not pass over the obstruction to do so. The renewal project was expected to be completed by late 2023, and in May 2022, a tunnel boring machine named ''Florence'' was set to work to cut the diameter sewer beneath the canal and the Painswick Stream. A second tunnel boring machine named ''Suzanne'' was set to work in July 2022.
The whole of Phase 1b, involving the restoration of Newtown, Blunder, Pike, Dock, Westfield and Whitminster locks, the construction of a diversion and the new M5 and Bristol Road locks, and the replacement of the low-level Walk Bridge near Saul Junction, is expected to be completed by 2025. Most of the cost of restoring Westfield Lock has been given in remembrance of John Robinson by his family, and the lock will be renamed John Robinson Lock when the work is completed.
Links to other waterways
The canal linked directly to the Severn Estuary
The Severn Estuary ( cy, Aber Hafren) is the estuary of the River Severn, flowing into the Bristol Channel between South West England and South Wales. Its high tidal range, approximately , means that it has been at the centre of discussions in t ...
(at Framilode) as originally constructed, and terminated in the east at Wallbridge Basin near Stroud town centre. The Thames and Severn Canal
The Thames and Severn Canal is a canal in Gloucestershire in the south-west of England, which was completed in 1789. It was conceived as part of a cargo route from Bristol and the Midlands to London, linking England's two largest rivers for bett ...
bypassed Wallbridge basin around ten years after this, and continued across Stroud to climb the Golden Valley, following its opening through the Cotswold hills to Lechlade
Lechlade () is a town at the southern edge of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England, south of Birmingham and west of London. It is the highest point at which the River Thames is navigable, although there is a right of navigation that contin ...
.
A junction between the Stroudwater Navigation and the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal
The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal (also known as the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal) is a ship canal in the west of England, between Gloucester and Sharpness; for much of its length it runs close to the tidal River Severn, but cuts off a sign ...
(at Saul
Saul (; he, , ; , ; ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first monarch of the United Kingdom of Israel. His reign, traditionally placed in the late 11th century BCE, supposedly marked the transition of Israel and Judah from a scattered tri ...
) came later when this new ship canal bypassed the hazardous tidal Severn, and dramatically reduced traffic on the short 'Old Stroudwater' segment from Saul to the river at Framilode, although it was still used by Forest of Dean coal shipments as the shortest journey. In the modern restoration era, the Old Stroudwater is now permanently abandoned, and very unlikely to be restored as the ship canal offers a safer route in both directions.
Points of interest
Water quality
The Environment Agency measure the water quality of the waterways in England. Each is given an overall ecological status, which may be one of five levels: high, good, moderate, poor and bad. There are several components that are used to determine this, including biological status, which looks at the quantity and varieties of invertebrate
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...
s, angiosperm
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...
s and fish. Chemical status, which compares the concentrations of various chemicals against known safe concentrations, is rated good or fail.
The water quality of the Stroudwater Navigation was as follows in 2019.
These two sections are not connected. The upper section ends at Ebley Weir, where most of the water which enters the canal from Slad Brook, Painswick Stream and Ruscombe Brook discharges into the River Frome. The lower section starts a little further along the canal, with the gap between the two sections not monitored in 2019. Like many waterways in the UK, the chemical status changed from good to fail in 2019, due to the presence of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE), perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS) and mercury compounds, none of which had previously been included in the assessment.
See also
* Stroudwater barge
A Stroudwater barge was a type of barge developed for use on the Stroudwater Navigation, a canal in Gloucestershire.
Origins
As for most specialised Canals of the United Kingdom, British canal barge designs, their size was chosen to be the large ...
*Canals of the United Kingdom
The canals of the United Kingdom are a major part of the network of inland waterways in the United Kingdom. They have a varied history, from use for irrigation and transport, through becoming the focus of the Industrial Revolution, to today's ro ...
*History of the British canal system
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
References
Bibliography
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Further reading
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External links
The Company of Proprietors of the Stroudwater Navigation
Cotswold Canals Trust
Stroudwater History
Cotswold Canals in Pictures
* ttp://canal.stroudvoices.co.uk Stroud Voices (Stroudwater & Thames & Severn selection) - oral history sitebr> List of YouTube videos of Stroudwater & Thames & Severn canals restoration
{{Canals of Britain
Stroud District
Canals in Gloucestershire
Canals in England
Canals linked to the River Severn
Canals opened in 1779