The Cassington Canal (also known as the Cassington Cut or the Evenlode Cut) was an early 19th-century

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 ...

near Eynsham,

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

. The canal was built by the 4th Duke of Marlborough to provide a link between the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...

and

Cassington Cassington is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Oxfordshire about northwest of Oxford. The village lies on gravel strata about from the confluence of the River Evenlode with the River Thames. The parish includes the Ha ...

Mill; it later provided alternative wharfage to that at Eynsham. The canal was in operation for less than 70 years, its use declining with the advent of rail transport. The canal's primary use was to connect the Duke's salt works with the network of canals, rivers, and other inland waterways, as well as connecting the Oxford Canal and the Thames and Severn Canal.

History

Built between 1800 and 1802, the canal initially provided an connection between Cassington Mill and the recently constructed

– Eynsham road. An early mention of the canal was in 1800, where the canal was described as "made by and belonging to" the Duke of Marlborough, and that its purpose was to convey goods between Cassington Mill and a wharf. A wide pool exists on the canal near Cassington Mill; this was possibly a basin which acted as the original terminus. Here, sluices and a weir between the cut and the

River Evenlode The River Evenlode is a tributary of the Thames in Oxfordshire. It rises near Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, in the Cotswold Hills and flows south-east to the Thames, its valley providing the route of the southern part of the Cotswold Li ...

were built. By 1802, the canal was extended to meet the

. At this time, engineer Robert Mylne conducted a report for the

Thames Commissioners The Thames Navigation Commission managed the River Thames in southern England from 1751 to 1866. In particular, they were responsible for installing or renovating many of the Canal lock, locks on the river in the 18th and early 19th centuries H ...

, which described the canal's length as approximately , and its width as . He also documented a

lock Lock(s) or Locked 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 entertainme ...

at the canal's junction with the Thames—possibly a stop lock as the navigations were controlled by different bodies. The lock, which maintained the canal at above the Thames (the same height as the mill weir) was wide and long. Beyond the canal's navigational limit at Cassington Wharf, the channel continued as a feeder from the Evenlode. The Duke of Marlborough was a shareholder in the

Oxford Canal The Oxford Canal is a narrowboat canal in southern central England linking the City of Oxford with the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury (just north of Coventry and south of Bedworth) via Banbury and Rugby. Completed in 1790, it connects to th ...

and had recently provided access between the lower Oxford Canal and the Thames via the

Duke's Cut Duke's Cut is a short waterway in Oxfordshire, England, which connects the Oxford Canal with the River Thames via the Wolvercote Mill Stream. It is named after George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough, across whose land the waterway was cut. I ...

. As a private canal—both in terms of finance and land ownership—no Act of Parliament was needed to allow its construction. It was built as a broad canal, meaning vessels wider than —the standard maximum beam of a

narrowboat A narrowboat is a particular type of Barge, canal boat, built to fit the narrow History of the British canal system, locks of the United Kingdom. The UK's canal system provided a nationwide transport network during the Industrial Revolution, b ...

—were able to use it. Boats from the north were restricted by the

sizes on the Oxford Canal, which only catered for narrow boats. The Duke leased the canal to the Oxford Canal Company. A public house, The Barge, was established at the wharf in 1804 by the first wharfinger, Henry Baker. Baker had previously been employed at

Enslow Enslow is a Hamlet (place), hamlet on the banks of both the River Cherwell and the Oxford Canal in Bletchingdon Civil parishes in England, civil parish, Oxfordshire. The medieval main road linking London with Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, Chipp ...

on the Oxford Canal, and it is he after whom Baker's Lock (number 40) on the Oxford Canal was named. Baker constructed two

lime kiln A lime kiln is a kiln used for the calcination of limestone (calcium carbonate) to produce the form of lime called ''quicklime'' (calcium oxide). The chemical equation for this reaction is: CaCO3 + heat → CaO + CO2 This reaction can tak ...

s at the wharf. Although sources suggest that the canal was not complete until 1814, reports exist of through-traffic of coal barges from the wharf to the Thames that were in operation in 1808. The canal's primary use was to provide a connection between the Duke's estate (including the trade from his salt works) and the network of inland waterways including other canals and rivers. The canal was able to trade with the Warwickshire Coalfield via the Thames and the Oxford Canal, and the

Somerset Coalfield The Somerset Coalfield in northern Somerset, England is an area where coal was mined from the 15th century until 1973. It is part of a larger coalfield which stretched into southern Gloucestershire. The Somerset coalfield stretched from Cromh ...

via the Thames and thence the Thames and Severn, Wilts and Berks,

Kennet and Avon Canal The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of , made up of two lengths of Navigability, navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than sol ...

, and

Somerset Coal Canal The Somerset Coal Canal (originally known as the Somersetshire Coal Canal) was a narrow canal in England, built around 1800. Its route began in basins at Paulton and Timsbury, ran to nearby Camerton, over two aqueducts at Dunkerton, throug ...

s. Fierce competition between the Thames and Severn Canal Company (who had taken over ownership of the cut) and the Oxford Canal Company (who owned the Wharf Stream in Eynsham) meant that barges were not permitted to unload at Eynsham Wharf. The Oxford Canal Company reacted by taking over the lease of the canal in 1834 to quash competition of coal travelling to the area from Somerset. At this time, Cassington Wharf was taking approximately £800 per year (). In 1839, Cassington Wharf was considered as a loading point for Taynton stone if it was to be used in the rebuilding of the

Houses of Parliament The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is located in London, England. It is commonly called the Houses of Parliament after the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two legislative ch ...

Charles Barry Sir Charles Barry (23 May 1795 – 12 May 1860) was an English architect best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsi ...

instead opted for Anston stone, much of which was loaded at Kiveton Park Wharf onto the

Chesterfield Canal The Chesterfield Canal is a narrow canal in the East Midlands of England and it is known locally as 'Cuckoo Dyke'. It was one of the last of the canals designed by James Brindley, who died while it was being constructed. It was opened in 1777 ...

and taken from there to London via the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

. The Oxford Canal Company did not renew the lease on the canal after 1842, and it was taken over by John Hambridge. In the 1841 census, Hambridge was a 40-year-old coal merchant living at Cassington Wharf. He was still living at the wharf at the time of the following census in 1851. In 1861, the Oxford, Witney and Fairford Railway opened and the railway crossed the canal by means of a single-span of . Embankments either side of the canal raised the railbed with a

gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function f of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p gives the direction and the rate of fastest increase. The g ...

to allow sufficient clearance below the bridge. The bridge was removed by the 1980s.

Decline

Use of the cut declined in the mid-19th century following the arrival of the Witney railway. The canal was still in occasional use in 1865 but was likely to have gone out of use by 1870. The public house closed in 1872. The 1898 1:2,500

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

map marked the cut as "Old Canal". By 1913, there was no trace of the entrance lock and the cut was described as little more than a brook, and by 1926 the canal was described as "forgotten". The

weir A weir or low-head dam is a barrier across the width of a river that alters the flow characteristics of water and usually results in a change in the height of the water level. Weirs are also used to control the flow of water for outlets of l ...

s between the River Evenlode and the canal are now used by the

Environment Agency The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and enha ...

as part of their Cassington Mill gauging station. Part of the canal is now used for angling, and is administered by the Abingdon and Oxford Anglers Alliance.

Notes

References

{{authority control Oxford Canal River Thames Canals in England