The Thames and Medway Canal is a disused

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

in Kent, south east England, also known as the Gravesend and Rochester Canal. It was originally some long and cut across the neck of the

Hoo peninsula The Hoo Peninsula is a peninsula in Kent, England, separating the estuaries of the rivers Thames and Medway. It is dominated by a line of chalk, clay and sand hills, surrounded by an extensive area of marshland composed of alluvial silt. The n ...

, linking the

River 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 ...

at Gravesend with the River Medway at Strood. The canal was first mooted in 1778 as a shortcut for military craft from

Deptford Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, within the London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a Ford (crossing), ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century to the late 19th it was home ...

and

Woolwich Dockyard Woolwich Dockyard (formally H.M. Dockyard, Woolwich, also known as The King's Yard, Woolwich) was an English naval dockyard along the river Thames at Woolwich in north-west Kent, where many ships were built from the early 16th century until th ...

s on the Thames to

Chatham Dockyard Chatham Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard located on the River Medway in Kent. Established in Chatham in the mid-16th century, the dockyard subsequently expanded into neighbouring Gillingham (at its most extensive, in the early 20th century ...

on the Medway, avoiding the journey round the peninsula and through the Thames estuary. The canal was also intended to take commercial traffic between the two rivers.

Construction

The first practical attempt to build the canal began in 1799, when an engineer named

Ralph Dodd Ralph (pronounced ; or ,) is a male given name of English, Scottish and Irish origin, derived from the Old English ''Rædwulf'' and Radulf, cognate with the Old Norse ''Raðulfr'' (''rað'' "counsel" and ''ulfr'' "wolf"). The most common forms ...

published a pamphlet and began to solicit investment for the scheme. Dodd's plan was for a six-mile canal with locks and basins, taking two years to build and costing £24,576, part of the cost to be defrayed by selling the excavated

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...

agricultural lime Agricultural lime, also called aglime, agricultural limestone, garden lime or liming, is a soil additive made from pulverized limestone or chalk. The primary active component is calcium carbonate. Additional chemicals vary depending on the mineral ...

. Dodd was confident that the canal would be useful to the government but would also attract commercial vessels. In 1800 the canal company received the necessary

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

and work began at the Gravesend end. The estimated cost had now risen to £57,433. From the Gravesend basin, the canal began with a straight section aligned with

New Tavern Fort New Tavern Fort is an historic artillery fort in Gravesend, Kent. Dating mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries, it is an unusually well-preserved example of an 18th-century fortification and remained in use for defensive purposes until the Sec ...

, Gravesend. By 1801 it ran six and a half kilometres (four miles) to Higham. A new engineer, Ralph Walker, arrived and announced that the whole canal would cost significantly more than the revised estimate. Work halted, and by 1804 Dodd had probably left the project. Over the next few years, Walker suggested two new routes for the Higham to Strood stretch, for which Acts of Parliament were obtained and money raised. His second route was decided on but required a tunnel through the chalk hills; work on this did not start until 1819. The canal finally opened on 14 October 1824, by which time the Napoleonic wars were long over and the military need had greatly diminished. The canal had taken five Acts of Parliament and cost some £260,000.

Operating problems

The canal was 13 m (43 ft) wide and carried the

Thames sailing barge A Thames sailing barge is a type of commercial sailing boat once common on the River Thames in London. The flat-bottomed barges with a shallow draught and leeboards, were perfectly adapted to the Thames Estuary, with its shallow waters and na ...

s common on both rivers. It was intended that the canal would be used for the transport of hops and other locally grown produce, but it was not a commercial success. It had locks at each end to protect the water level from tidal change, but the canal walls leaked and the water level dropped between every spring tide. A steam-driven pumping station was built to rectify this. The gap in Higham Tunnel - geograph

Complaints then came from barge-owners that the tunnel was slow to use, so in 1830 it was shut for two months while an open-air passing place was dug in the middle. This 100-yard long cutting divided the tunnel into a separate Higham tunnel and Strood tunnel. The canal tolls reflected these improvements, but if a boat missed the tide it would have to wait in the canal basin for longer than the journey round Hoo would have taken.

Higham and Strood tunnel

The Higham and Strood tunnel is long, and was the second longest canal tunnel built in the UK (the longest is the Standedge Canal Tunnel). It was also the largest: 10.7 m (35 ft) high from arch to canal bed, 6.6 m (21.5 ft) wide at the water line, a further 1.5 m (5 ft) wide at towpath level, and had water 2.4 m (8 ft) deep. These dimensions could accommodate a 60 tonne sailing barge with its mast lowered. The tunnel was dug through the chalk using only hand tools, but occasionally gunpowder was used. Several workmen were killed in rockfalls. It was considered an engineering wonder of its time.

The tunnel is so perfectly straight, that a person placed at one end, may discern a small light entering at the other extremity ..On the opening of the tunnel, a small steam passage boat was employed for the conveyance of passengers from Gravesend to Rochester, and vice versa; but as it was found to injure the towing-path of the tunnel, as well as the banks of the canal, it was discontinued. Foot passengers, however, still pass to and fro, though some caution is necessary, to avoid coming into contact with the horse, or horses, towing the barges.
— Tallis Directory 1839

Sharing with the railway

From 1845 the newly built railway between Gravesend and Strood shared the tunnel with the canal, a single track resting partially on the towpath and partially on wooden stakes in the water.

The ride through the dreary tunnel with the dark waters of the canal beneath us, and an insecure chalk roof above our heads, enlivened as it is by occasional shrieks from the engine's vaporous lungs, and the unceasing rattle of the train, is apt to make one feel somewhat nervous; and the first glimpse of bright daylight that breaks upon us, relieves us from a natural anxiety as to the chances we run of being crushed by the fall of some twenty tons of chalk from above, or being precipitated into twenty feet of water beneath, with the doors of the carriages locked and no "Nautilus belt" around our waists and not even a child's
caul A caul or cowl ( la, Caput galeatum, literally, "helmeted head") is a piece of membrane that can cover a newborn's head and face. Birth with a caul is rare, occurring in fewer than 1 in 80,000 births. The caul is harmless and is immediately remov ...
in our pocket. This relief is however temporary, for the light only breaks in through a gap in the tunnel, and some more experienced traveller informs us we are only half out of it. However, our journey is brought to a close without any accident: and we embark on the steamer that is to deposit us at Chatham.
—William Orr, 1847

In 1846 the canal company sold the tunnel to the South Eastern Railway company, which filled the canal and laid a double railway track over it. This was part of the

North Kent Line The North Kent Line is a railway line which branches off the South East Main Line at St Johns junction west of Lewisham station in Greater London and runs to Rochester Bridge Junction near Strood, Medway where it links to the Chatham Main Li ...

. The canal towing contractor's home was converted into the ticket office for Higham railway station. Orr's fears of a chalk fall, however, were not unfounded. Over the years, there have been many roof falls, most small. But in December 1999 a fall near Strood derailed a train, fortunately without causing serious injuries (but leaving a hole in the ground in an orchard). Some 60% of the tunnel had by this date been lined: in 2004 it was closed to line the remainder and renew the track, reopening a year later on 17 January 2005.

1846 to today

The remainder of the canal, between Higham and Gravesend, continued to be used until 1934. It suffered bomb damage during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, and some areas have been back-filled or are choked with reed growth. The Strood canal basin, long orphaned by the loss of the tunnel, was back-filled in 1986 and has now been built over. Since 1976 the canal has been in the hands of the Thames & Medway Canal Association (TMCA), which has dredged some areas. British Rail restored one of the swing bridges. The towpath has recently been renovated for use by pedestrians and cyclists. It now forms part of Route 1 of the

National Cycle Network The National Cycle Network (NCN) is the national cycling route network of the United Kingdom, which was established to encourage cycling and walking throughout Britain, as well as for the purposes of bicycle touring. It was created by the cha ...

from Dover to John o' Groats. For walkers, it forms part of circular walks linked to the

Saxon Shore Way The Saxon Shore Way is a long-distance footpath in England. It starts at Gravesend, Kent, and traces the coast of South-East England as it was in Roman times as far as Hastings, East Sussex, in total. This means that around Romney Marsh the ...

. There are now plans to fully renovate the canal and make it a focal point of development in Gravesend, to benefit the town while meeting the

Thames Gateway Thames Gateway is a term applied to an area around the Thames Estuary in the context of discourse around regeneration and further urbanisation. The term was first coined by the UK government and applies to an area of land stretching east from ...

project's demands for house-building. In October 2004, the Gravesend

canal basin A canal basin is (particularly in the United Kingdom) an expanse of waterway alongside or at the end of a canal, and wider than the canal, constructed to allow boats to moor or unload cargo without impeding the progress of other traffic, and to al ...

was dredged, after which the

lock Lock(s) may refer to: Common meanings *Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance *Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal Arts and entertainment * ''Lock ...

gates into the Thames were renovated, enabling the basin to be used by boats from the river. The line of the canal has been protected from development since 1992.

Notes and references

* Priestley, Joseph (1831)
''Historical account of the navigable rivers, canals and railways throughout Great Britain''
1st ed Longman;Nichols. 2nd ed Cass, 1967. This author (b.1739) is ''not''

Joseph Priestley Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted exp ...

the chemist.
Thames and Medway Canal Association
History of the canal * Discover Facts on Gravesend: The Thames and Medway Canal
no longer available --> * Rayner, Stephen. Memories page, ''Medway News'' (used with permission).

External links

Thames and Medway Canal Association
- currently restoring sections of the canal.

Pencil drawing of Higham tunnel entrance, 1889
Multimap
Map of canal from Gravesend to Lower Higham. Strood canal basin was in crook of River Medway above word "Rochester" on map.
Sustrans
Official site of the national cycle network. {{DEFAULTSORT:Thames And Medway Canal Canals in Kent Transport in Medway Gravesham CThamesandMedway Canals opened in 1824