The Desborough Cut is an artificial channel in 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 ...

above

Sunbury Lock Sunbury Lock is a lock complex of the River Thames in England near Walton-on-Thames in north-west Surrey, the third lowest of forty four on the non-tidal reaches. The complex adjoins the right, southern bank about downstream of the Weir Ho ...

near

Walton on Thames Walton-on-Thames, locally known as Walton, is a market town on the south bank of the Thames in the Elmbridge borough of Surrey, England. Walton forms part of the Greater London built-up area, within the KT postcode and is served by a wide ran ...

in England. It was completed in 1935, to improve flow and ease navigation on the river. The cut was dug between 1930 and 1935, taking the river on a straight course between

Weybridge Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a crossing point of the ...

and Walton, and avoiding a meandering stretch past

Shepperton Shepperton is an urban village in the Borough of Spelthorne, Surrey, approximately south west of central London. Shepperton is equidistant between the towns of Chertsey and Sunbury-on-Thames. The village is mentioned in a document of 959 AD ...

and

Lower Halliford Shepperton is an urban village in the Borough of Spelthorne, Surrey, approximately south west of central London. Shepperton is equidistant between the towns of Chertsey and Sunbury-on-Thames. The village is mentioned in a document of 959 AD ...

. It is a very slight curve long. Its

geodesic length In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path (arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. I ...

as the crow flies __NOTOC__ The expression ''as the crow flies'' is an idiom for the most direct path between two points, rather similar to "in a beeline". This meaning is attested from the early 19th century, and appeared in Charles Dickens's 1838 novel '' Oliv ...

, and its construction created

Desborough Island Desborough Island is a manmade island in the River Thames on the reach above Sunbury Lock in Surrey, England. It was formed in the 1930s by the digging of a channel – the Desborough Cut – by the Thames Conservancy as a meander cutoff of ...

. Two bridges were built across the cut to link to the island, which contains a water treatment works and a large extent of open space used for recreation. The cut alleviated flooding in Shepperton and halved the distance of travel on that part of the river. The cut creates a rare stretch on the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

having alternative main navigation channels and is the longest such alternative.

Navigation transit markers Navigation Transit Markers are posts placed alongside a navigation to allow powered craft to check their speed. Examples of these markers can be found at several locations along the River Thames in England. A navigation marker consists of a blac ...

stand alongside it as a traditional method for powered boats to check their speed. The cut and the adjacent island were named after

Lord Desborough William Henry Grenfell, 1st Baron Desborough, (30 October 1855 – 9 January 1945) was a British athlete, sportsman, public servant and politician. He sat in the House of Commons first for the Liberal Party and then for the Conservatives betwee ...

who was chairman of the

Thames Conservancy The Thames Conservancy (formally the Conservators of the River Thames) was a body responsible for the management of the that river in England. It was founded in 1857 to replace the jurisdiction of the City of London up to Staines. Nine years la ...

at the time and who opened it.Ron Emmons ''Walks along the Thames Path'' New Holland Publishers 2008
/ref>

References

{{Spelthorne CDesborough