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The Severn Canal
Here are photos of the Thames and
Severn Canal token, showing a Severn
trow and the eastern portal of
Sapperton tunnel.
THE THAMES AND
SEVERN CANAL
From olden
times
the Thames bore goods from London to
its highest navigable reaches above
Lechlade and in 1789 a canal was
completed to extend the navigation to
the river
Severn.
One hundred
and
fifty years ago we were sending heavy
goods in great ships to America and
India,
but here at home we were dispatching
sacks of coal and hardware strapped to
the
flanks of pack horses. Wheeled traffic
stuck in the mud and broke up in the
ruts
where the track crossed a pocket of
clay. The upkeep of these tracks was
the
responsibility of the Parish and only
grudgingly would they pay rates to
keep
them in any better condition than
necessary for their own village use.
Under
public pressure, Parliament at last
moved in perhaps the only way it could
in a
free society by authorising the
formation of turnpike companies to
collect tolls
for the maintenance of their own
enclosed stretch of route. Between
1750 and
1790, sixteen hundred of these
companies were formed and as the roads
improved,
so did the coaches. At the time of
Queen Anne (1710) the massive coaches
carrying only seven people were tugged
along at a walking pace by a team of
six
horses. By 1750 the more lightly built
stage coach, pulled by two or four
horses
was still without springs. A journey
of 100 miles took about a day and cost
eight to ten shillings, the weekly
wage of an agricultural
worker.
Industries
were
springing up; coal, iron, pottery,
grain had to be moved to the growing
towns
and following the invention of the
pound lock a wave of canal building
started,
again by private companies financed by
the issue of shares. Who would not
invest
his money in shares of a company to
move goods in barges holding 30 tons
upwards
when a pack horse was the alternative?
The Thames
and
Severn Canal Company was one of the
later ones to be formed- It was
incorporated
in 1783 and work on the canal was
completed in 1789 when it stretched
from the
existing Stroud Water Canal up the
Golden Valley, under Cirencester Park
and
thus to Inglesham and the Thames at a
cost of a quarter of a million pounds.
The
barges it carried were up to 70 ft.
long and 7 ft. wide carrying 30 tons
of
goods.
The men who
dug
the canal were mostly Irish and Scots
who lived in huts and tents and
followed
the digging in its slow process across
the countryside. Gangs of eight, three
diggers, two wagon fillers, two
drivers and an emptier, worked in
eight hour
shifts and
were paid £5
per
yard, averaging 20 yards per week per
gang. Unfortunately they were not paid
in
cash but in tokens which could only be
used at the company shop at Brimscombe
Port, near Stroud, an arrangement
which was not improved until the Truck
Act of
1841. The skilled men of the gang were
the diggers or cutters of the canal
navigation, and were called navigators
and hence "navvys". The
earth they
removed from the bed of the canal
formed the sides and towpath and the
water was
retained by a 12" thick layer of
clay dug from the nearest pit. The
tunnel at
Sapperton, over 2 miles long, was dug
simultaneously from its ends and
intermediate points, by sinking
shafts. The workers were accommodated
in hostels
at each end which are now the Daneway
and Tunnel House Inns.
Canals are
built
to carry boats on water and as water
runs down hill, the route of the canal
has
to be carefully chosen so that each
stretch is perfectly level until the
next
lock is reached. The highest point of
the Thames and Severn Canal is 363 ft.
above sea
level so on
coming up the Thames from the sea many
locks (67) are needed each of which
raises the water level about 5 ft.
When a barge is sailing to the next
higher
stretch of water it passes through the
first pair of gates of the lock which
are
closed behind it. The lock is then
filled with water from the higher
level and
when the barge has floated up, the top
gates are opened and the barge is free
to
move on.
Each time
the
lock is used it must be filled with
water and thus a continual supply is
needed
even at the highest summit level 363
ft. up Fortunately at this height
there are
a series of springs at Thames Head,
near Kemble. The Springs were
connected to a
large well from which water was pumped
into the canal by a steam engine. At
other places along the canal the river
Churn supplied water near Cirencester
and
Ampney Brook near Cricklade.
Strangely
enough,
early failure of the Thames and Severn
Canal was caused by these same
springs.
They were so powerful in winter that
they burst through the clay bed of the
canal and when they receded in summer
the canal water ran away through the
holes
and even
continuous pumping was insufficient to
keep the canal navigable. The highest
tonnage carried, 89,271 tons, was
recorded during the year 1841 and
receipts
were £11,330 from about 10 barges
passing each day. The revenue of the
canal
company arose from tolls charged at
the rate of so many pence per ton per
mile
carried. Milestones were set up along
the towpaths so that this point to
point
toll could be accurately calculated.
The charges were lowest for bulk
cargoes
such as coal and limestone, higher for
more valuable cargoes such as iron ore
and higher still for finished goods
like iron castings and grocery, etc.
The
Thames and Severn Canal was closed in
1893 after being bought out by the
G.W.R.
It was restored in 1895 at an
expenditure of £19,000 by a new Trust
but it was
again unsuccessful and it was taken
over by the Gloucestershire County
Council
which spent £3,000 on repairing the
bed at the summit level. All this was
to no
avail however, as the railways were by
then carrying the bulk of the traffic
and
the last barge went through in about
1911 and the eastern section was
finally
closed in 1927, and the western end in
1933.
The Thames
and
Severn Canal leaves the Thames at the
Round House at Inglesham. Round houses
were built to accommodate the lock-
keepers and length men, and they have
3
rooms, one above the other, with a
spiral staircase built into the
thickened
wall on one side which holds the
fireplace and flues. Four of these
unique
houses still exist between Inglesham
and Sapperton and two are in use as
weekend
cottages; there are several other more
conventional lock cottages. Along the
canal all the wooden lock gates are
rotten and the stone and brick work is
being
pushed aside by bushes and trees.
Water is found only in a few places
where the
level of the canal is lower than the
surrounding country and about four
miles
near Kempsford have been filled in
with little to show except a bridge in
the
middle of a field. In other places,
the dry bed, overgrown with bushes
each
side, makes good cover for game birds
and wild life.
For about 50
years before the railways spread
across the country between 1825 and
1875, the
canals were also used for carrying
passengers between large towns, as it
was
discovered that lightweight barges
could be pulled along at a gallop by
two
horses. At a speed of 10 to 12 miles
per hour the barge is continually
sliding
down the front of the wave caused by
its own movement. C. S. Forester in
'Homblower and the Atropos' describes
how Homblower travels from Gloucester
to
London on the canal and then down the
Thames, a distance of 130 miles in
about
24 hours through over a
hundred
locks. It
was a
much more comfortable trip than in a
jolting coach which took 13 hours for
the
journey at the same price of 10/-
.
Conditions
on the
Thames were different from the canal;
there were weirs on the river which
were
still controlled by the millers and
fishermen. From the earliest times
mills
were driven by water power obtained by
damming up the river. The pools above
and
below the mill also provided the best
fishing on the river and were netted
to
provide food. The miller charged a
toll from the barge to pass through
his weir
as locks were not built on the Thames
for many years after the canal was in
operation. Sufficient `paddles' were
pulled out of the weir to accommodate
the
width of the barge which was then
hauled up over the resultant waterfall
by a
team of perhaps 12 horses and 6 men.
When the barge was through and the
paddles
put back, much of the water had
drained out of the upper stretch of
the river
and in summertime the barge might have
to wait for several weeks before there
was sufficient depth of water for it
to float. As this also meant that the
mill
could not operate there was continual
strife between the millers and the
bargees.
It was not until locks were built all
the way up the Thames that free
passage
was obtained but by then the railways
had made the canal derelict.
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