Walking the waterways (14) : Wey Navigation

The River Wey was made navigable from the Thames at Weybridge to Guildford in 1653 [1]. Twelve locks were built between Weybridge and Guildford. The Wey Navigation was later connected to the Basingstoke and Wey & Arun Canals and the river navigation was continued to Goldalming to form the Goldaming Navigation in 1764.

The ability to much more easily send agricultural and manufactured products to London was a great boon to Guildford which prospered as a town and the navigation bought in healthy toll receipts for decades as thousands of tons of goods travelled along it. However the navigation declined with the arrival of the railway to Guildford in 1845 and improved roads though tonnage and receipts remained acceptable well into the 20th century (over 25,000 tons carried in 1948 for example).

The navigation went into terminal decline with the collapse in trade from the Basingstoke Canal and the decline of the London docks. The last commercial traffic travelled on the Wey Navigation in 1969 (apart from some traffic between Tilbury and Coxes Mill in the early 1980s). Ownership of the navigation transferred to the National Trust and now it is used for leisure activities.

On the edge of Guildford

Desirable river side properties in Guildford

Dapdune Wharf, Guildford

Town Wharf, Guildford

Walnut Bridge, Guildford

[1] P.A.L. Vine, Surrey Waterways (Middleton Press, 1987) p. 67

A tale of 3 stations

If the visit to Langley Mill was a tale of 3 canals then getting there and back was a tale of 3 railway stations. To get to Langley Mill (a new station to me) i went via Chesterfield (which i have been through before but not stopped at). I came back via Nottingham, which i have been to before but not for a few years.

As you know one of my main blogs is my Calling At... stations blog so i now have 2 new stations to add to the pending list. Mind you i do have well over a year of pending entries even with 2 updates a week so it might take some time before they appear on the blog.

Chesterfield

Langley Mill

Nottingham

Langley Mill, the meeting of 3 canals

As i said last month when i completed the towpath i was missing between Whatstandwell and Ambergate i had walked all of the Cromford Canal... except the short stretch at Langley Mill... so i rectified that today! At Langley Mill the Erewash Canal meets the Cromford and Nottingham Canals, now only the Erewash remains as an actual waterway at that location nowadays.

The Cromford Canal stretches for a couple of hundred metres (most of that not public towpath as far as i can tell) though i did walk the bit i could which was about as long as my garden! The Nottingham Canal is just a basin now though i have walked the surviving stretch of the canal through Nottingham before. I also walked a stretch of the Erewash Canal. You can see my photos here.

Embankment

A Bakerloo Line train arrives at Embankment.

Walking the waterways (13) : Grand Union Canal

The Grand Union Canal is the longest canal in England, stretching 137 miles from London to Birmingham. However the Grand Union is a relatively recent creation, only existing from 1929 from the amalgamation of other canals such as the Grand Junction and the Warwick & Napton Canal in an effort to reduce costs in order to compete with the railways.

The Grand Union Canal at its maximum extent included the Regent's Canal and so extended from Limehouse on the Thames up to the Midlands. There were two branches to Birmingham and to Leicester, the latter is nowadays known as the Old Grand Union Canal or the Leicester Section.

These days the Grand Union Canal (as commonly marked on maps or signs) starts at Paddington at the end of the Paddington Arm and extends up through London, Hertfordshire (the likes of Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamstead), Buckinghamshire (Aylesbury), Warwickshire (Leamington Spa and Hatton) and into Birmingham. The furthest extent is at Salford Junction underneath Spaghetti Junction. Both ends of the canal are in the centres of England's two biggest cities but the canal passes through some of the most beautiful countryside England can offer.

Aston Clinton Field Bridge 13 near Aylesbury

Berkhamstead

Leam Bridge 44 in Leamington Spa

Paddington Arm

The start of the canal at Salford Junction

Winkwell Slew Railway Bridge 147B near Hemel Hempstead