The Thames and Severn Canal

1. The canal was lined with 'Puddle Clay' which creates an almost impervious layer thus keeping the water from draining away. The work gang here are tamping down the puddle clay using a 'clay grafting' tool and their feet!
2. Puck Mill, GCC work gang during the 1907 restoration work.
3. Puck Mill pound looking west.
4. This shows the re-construction of Puck Mill lower lock c. 1907. Bakers Mill can be seen in the distance.
5. Sectional Plan for Sapperton Canal Tunnel c1783
6. Canal Construction Details and Specification c.1783
7. This work gang in 1907 are 'puddling' the clay lining on the Puck's Mill stretch at the lower lock. There are local men in the photo which is looking east towards the Oak
8. 'Leggers' provided the human power to push the barges through Sapperton Tunnel (although the image shown is not at Sapperton) - it was slow and exhausting work.
9. In contrast GWR engine Number 1493 is shown here in 1897. Once the Swindon the Gloucester line opened the canal went into rapid decline.
10. Martin Neville of Frampton Mansell wrote this piece on the failure of the canal when he was concerned (as an effected landowner) as to the likelihood of its restoration being attempted.

Since the 1730s, when the first Act of Parliament to authorize a canal from the River Severn to Stroud had been passed, the Stroudwater Navigation had been seen as part of a larger plan to link London and Bristol by waterway. No work took place immediately, but the Stroudwater was eventually opened in 1779, and within two years the shareholders commissioned a survey for a canal from Dudbridge to Cricklade, which would complete the link. It is likely that John Priddy – previously the engineer for the Stroudwater scheme – carried out the survey, but others were soon involved including Sir Edward Littleton, who was part of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal.

Priddy suggested that there were better terminal points at Wallbridge and Lechlade. Robert Whitworth then surveyed two routes, the first as suggested by Priddy, and the second direct from the Severn to the Thames following the valley of the River Coln. The first route was chosen, based on excellent water supplies at Cirencester, although the estimates of the amount of water available proved to be wildly optimistic.

The estimated cost of the project was £127,916, most of which was promised within three weeks. The bill to authorise the canal passed through Parliament relatively easily, and became an Act on 17 April 1783. The company could raise an initial £130,000, with an additional £60,000 if required. The canal was to be suitable for boats 12 feet (3.7 m) wide, and so could accommodate Thames barges, but not Severn Trows.

Josiah Clowes was appointed head engineer, surveyor and carpenter to the canal in 1783 to assist Whitworth. Clowes became resident engineer and was paid £300 per year. Clowes' work on the canal gave him a reputation which made him highly sought after in the last five years of his life. He left the construction of the canal shortly before completion to work on Dudley Tunnel.

There was great debate about the gauge of the tunnel required at Sapperton. Commissioners from the River Thames thought that it would have to be built for narrow boats, since the cost of a larger tunnel would be prohibitive. It was also going to be longer than any tunnel yet built. However, a decision was made that it would be built as a broad tunnel, 15 feet (4.6 m) wide and high, and so the company advertised for tunnellers.

The tunnel was expected to take four years to complete when work began at the start of 1784, but it was not completed until April 1789. The canal opened in stages as it was completed. The first 4 miles (6.4 km) from Wallbridge to Chalford opened in January 1785, and by mid-1786, the navigable section had reached the western portal of the tunnel, 7.5 miles (12.1 km) and 28 locks from Wallbridge. A wharf was built at Daneway Bridge, equipped with a warehouse and coalyard.

The tunnel was constructed from many workfaces, with 25 shafts sunk along its course to provide access. After completion there were problems, and the tunnel was shut for two and a half months during 1790 for further work to be carried out. The summit level and a branch to Cirencester were completed in 1787, and became operational as soon as the tunnel opened. The final section to the junction with the Thames at Inglesham, which descends through 16 locks, was finished in November 1789. The canal was completed at a cost of £250,000.  With the Stroudwater Navigation, which had been completed in 1779, it completed a link between the River Severn in the west and the River Thames in the east.

As built, the main line was just under 28.7 miles (46.2 km) long and had 44 locks. The branch to Cirencester added a further 1.5 miles (2.4 km). The first 2.5 miles (4.0 km) from Wallbridge to Brimscombe, where there was a transhipment basin, was built with locks 69 by 16 feet (21.0 by 4.9 m), enabling Severn trows to use it. Beyond that, the locks were 90 by 12.7 feet (27.4 by 3.9 m) and the boats used were Thames barges. The canal's summit, which is 362 feet (110 m) above sea level and 8.1 miles (13.0 km) long, includes the 3,817-yard (3,490 m) Sapperton Tunnel, at the time, the longest in England. Its length has only been exceeded by two other canal tunnels, at Standedge in the Pennines and at Strood in Kent.

Operation

Until the summit level was completed, little thought seems to have been given to water supply. It was assumed that the River Frome, to the west of the tunnel, the River Churn which flowed through Cirencester, and the River Coln, together with springs at Boxwell and a well near the source of the River Thames at Thames Head, would be sufficient. The original horse pump at Thames Head was replaced by a windmill, but Clowes discovered that he could not stop the summit pound from leaking.

The flow on the River Churn was 1.7 million gallons (7.7 Megalitres (Ml)) per day, whereas the calculated flow at the start of the project had been more than ten times this value. The summit level was losing around 1.1 million gallons per day (5 Mld), largely because the underlying rock was porous limestone, and it was estimated that around half of the daily requirement could actually be supplied. The wells at Thames Head were extended and a Boulton & Watt steam engine was installed in 1792 to pump the water into the canal. An extra, shallow lock was built at Boxwell, which allowed the level of the canal to be dropped beyond it, and more water to be taken from Boxwell springs. The new arrangements were adequate, although some of the reason was the failure of traffic to develop to the levels anticipated.

Leakage was affected by springs breaking through the clay lining of the canal bed. In summer when the springs receded, water was lost through these holes at a rate greater than the available supply. In one of the attempts to rectify this problem, the size of the locks was reduced which resulted in their unusual double headed appearance. In a further attempt to prevent water loss, at King's Reach, the section immediately east of Sapperton Tunnel, the canal was lined with concrete rather than puddle clay.

Neither of the river navigations to which the canal connected were satisfactory. In the west, the situation was remedied in 1820, with the construction of the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal seven years later.

On the Thames, there had been a proposal for a canal from Lechlade to Abingdon in 1784, and for a cut from Inglesham to Buscot in 1788, but neither had been built. Some improvements were made to the river after 1786, but the Canal company encouraged the building of bypasses. The Wilts and Berks Canal was one, providing a link to the river at Abingdon, but although it was proposed in 1793, it was not opened until 1810, and the North Wilts Canal, which provided a connecting link from Latton to Swindon was not completed until 1819.

Ultimately, most of the Bristol to London trade used the Kennet and Avon Canal after it opened in 1810, as it provided a much shorter route than the Thames and Severn Canal.

The Decline and Closure of the Canal

Railway competition began in 1836, when the Cheltenham and Great Western Railway proposed a line between Swindon and Cheltenham, via Gloucester. The canal company opposed the scheme, and received compensation of £7,500 from the railway company over the next four and a half years. The line opened to Kemble in 1841, and the tolls on the carriage of materials for the railway's construction improved the financial position of the canal for a short time. The railway company was then taken over by the Great Western Railway, who built a new tunnel at Sapperton, and opened the railway to Gloucester in 1845.

Canal tolls were cut, in an attempt to retain traffic, but toll revenue fell from £11,000 to £2,874 between 1841 and 1855. The Thames Commissioners were also in financial difficulties, and the Thames was nearly unnavigable from Oxford to Lechlade after 1855.

In 1866, plans to convert the canal to a railway were rejected by Parliament, but the Thames Commissioners were replaced by the Thames Conservancy, and most of the river was soon returned to a navigable state. The condition of the canal continued to decline. Complaints were made about its state in 1874 and 1885, which resulted in surveys being undertaken, but little was done to remedy the situation.

In 1893, the Thames and Severn company announced that the canal between Chalford and Inglesham would close two days later. Negotiations with a number of interested parties took place, and having given an assurance that it would not be converted into a railway to the Great Western Railway, an Act of Parliament was obtained in 1895, which formed a Trust with powers to raise £15,000. The Trust included representatives from the Sharpness New Docks & Gloucester & Birmingham Company, the Stroudwater Canal, the Staffs & Worcs Canal, the Severn Commissioners, Berkshire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire County Councils and Stroud and Cirencester District Councils.

At the same time as the Trust refurbished the canal, the upper Thames was upgraded by the Thames Conservancy.

Although the canal was re-opened in March 1899, lack of water on the summit level soon closed it again, after which Gloucestershire County Council suggested that they take it over. They did so on 2 July 1901. In 1925 they began negotiations with interested parties which ultimately led to the abandonment of the canal from Chalford to Inglesham in 1927. The Stroudwater Navigation managed to keep the remaining section open until 1933, when it was abandoned, and their own canal closed in 1941.

Restoration

Today there is an ambitious programme to restore the canal. The  canal being restored under the Phase 1A Restoration Programme is a six mile section between 'The Ocean' at Stonehouse on the Stroudwater Navigation and Brimscombe Port, to the east of Stroud, on the Thames & Severn Canal. Yu can find out more by clcking on the link below.

For more pictures and information, both modern and historical and for details of the canal restoration works and charity click here : http://www.cotswoldcanals.net/photo_page.php?idx=2860