The Newport Pagnell Canal was a 1.25 mile canal in

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-e ...

that ran from the Grand Junction Canal at

Great Linford Great Linford is a historic village, district and wider civil parish in the northern part of Milton Keynes, England, between Wolverton and Newport Pagnell. Great Linford village Great Linford was one of the North Buckinghamshire villages inc ...

Newport Pagnell Newport Pagnell is a town and civil parish in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The Office for National Statistics records Newport Pagnell as part of the Milton Keynes urban area. It is separated from the rest of the urban ...

through seven locks. Construction was authorised by an

Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of parliame ...

in June 1814 and it probably opened in 1817. It closed in 1864, with part of the route used for the line of a railway.

History

The Grand Junction Canal was planned in 1791, to provide a direct link between Braunston on the Oxford Canal and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, 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 dow ...

. This led to a flurry of canal proposals in 1792 and 1793, all based on the assumption that the Grand Junction would be built. The route was authorised by an

on 30 April 1793, and the first proposal for a branch from it to Newport Pagnell was made in that year. James Barnes, who had made the first survey for the Grand Junction, also carried out a survey for the Newport Pagnell branch, but the committee for the main canal declined to build it once they had read the report. On 2 January 1813, a meeting was held at the ''Swan Inn'' in Newport Pagnell, which proposed the building of a canal, using the original powers of the Grand Junction Canal, or the construction of a railway along a similar route, which would have required an Act of Parliament. The Grand Junction Canal again refused to construct the branch, and the idea of a railway was dropped. Instead, a meeting held on 20 August 1813 decided to apply for an Act of Parliament to authorise the branch, and the Act was granted in June 1814. The route was surveyed by Benjamin Beven, who was working for the Grand Junction Canal, and work began in early 1815. The canal took two years to build and opened in early 1817. It was long, and the level fell by through seven locks as it ran from

to Newport Pagnell. Although the Grand Junction was built for wide-beam boats, the locks were built to the same dimensions as those on the Northampton Branch, and were . The cost of the project was around £14,200, which included ornamentation where the canal passed through ground belonging to the Rev. W. Uthwatt. The main cargo was coal, brought from Shipley on the Nutbrook Canal and Moira on the

Ashby Canal The Ashby-de-la-Zouch Canal is a long canal in England which connected the mining district around Moira, just outside the town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, with the Coventry Canal at Bedworth in Warwickshire. It was opened in 1804, ...

for sale in Newport Pagnelll and the surrounding region. This accounted for some 7,500 tons per year, and another 2,500 tons were made up of lime, manure, bricks and other cargos. Tolls were very high, and were still being maintained at 9 pence (4p) for the length of the canal when tolls on the neighbouring Grand Junction were less than 1 penny (0.4p) per mile. This allowed dividends to be paid throughout the life of the canal, which averaged 2.7 per cent, but reached 6 per cent in 1845, the year in which the canal carried its greatest volume of 14,887 tons.

Expansion

While the canal was being promoted, the committee had in mind that it might be possible to extend the canal to Olney, and to connect to the River Great Ouse by building a link to

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst t ...

. Once the canal was opened, a survey was commissioned by Lord St. John. This proposed a canal for 20-ton boats, from Newport Pagnell via Tyringham,

Sharnbrook Sharnbrook is a village and civil parish located in the Borough of Bedford in Bedfordshire, England. The settlement was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a parish within the Hundred of Willey but was probably first developed in Saxon ...

and

St Neots St NeotsPronunciation of the town name: Most commonly, but variations that ''saint'' is said as in most English non-georeferencing speech, the ''t'' is by a small minority of the British pronounced and higher traces of in the final syllable ...

, where it would join the Ouse. The proposal also included a branch to Kimbolton, but no further action was taken. The idea of a link between the canal and the upper Ouse was revived in 1838, but again, no action was taken.

Decline

In 1845 an approach was made to buy the canal by the

London and North Western Railway The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom. In 1923, it became a constituent of the Lo ...

. The offer was turned down but in 1862 the canal was sold to the Newport Pagnell Railway for £9,000, despite opposition from the Grand Junction, the Oxford Canal, and the collieries at Moira and Shipley. An Act of Parliament authorising the takeover was obtained in 1863, the canal closed in August 1864, and it was partially built upon by the railway. At Newport Pagnell, the railway re-used several of the warehouses and most of Shipley Wharf.

Route

The canal left the Grand Junction Canal just to the east of Linford Wharf Bridge, and ran along a relatively straight course eastwards to Newport Pagnell. The locks appear to have been the main engineering features, as there were no significant roads which crossed the course. Although the 1881 Ordnance Survey map shows the railway, rather than the canal, there were no crossings, and this remained the case in 1925. Even today, there are only two routes which cross the path of the canal. The first is the M1 motorway, which was built while the railway was still open, while Brickhill Street was not built until after the railway had closed. The two lock pounds immediately below Great Linford Wharf were depicted on Ordnance Survey maps until 1968, but disappeared after that. The location at which the canal joined the Grand Junction Canal, which has been part of 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 ...

since amalgamation in 1929, is marked by a large winding hole close to Linford Wharf Bridge. A pub at the entrance to the canal was popular among boatmen until it closed in the 1960s. A section of the Newport Pagnell basin wall was discovered during the redevelopment of the railway station site.

Bibliography

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History

Expansion

Decline

Route

Bibliography

References

See also