Gloucester And Sharpness Canal
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The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal (also known as the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal) is a ship canal in the west of England, between
Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city, non-metropolitan district and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West England, South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean ...
and Sharpness, completed in 1827. For much of its length the canal runs close to the tidal
River Severn The River Severn (, ), at long, is the longest river in Great Britain. It is also the river with the most voluminous flow of water by far in all of England and Wales, with an average flow rate of at Apperley, Gloucestershire. It rises in t ...
, but it cuts off a significant loop in the river, at a once-dangerous bend near
Arlingham Arlingham is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Stroud District of Gloucestershire, England. The 2021 Census recorded a parish population of 533 (271 males, 262 females (129 in the age range 0-17, 289 18-64year olds an ...
. It was once the broadest and deepest canal in the world. The canal is long.


Canal planning and construction

Conceived in the canal mania period of the late 18th century, the Gloucester and Berkeley Ship Canal scheme (as it was originally named) was started by
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
and
civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...
Robert Mylne. In 1793 an act of Parliament, the ( 33 Geo. 3. c. 97) was obtained authorising the raising of a total of £200,000.Hadfield (1969), p.342 The project rapidly encountered financial difficulties, to such an extent that Mylne left the project in 1798. By mid-1799 costs had reached £112,000 but only of the canal had been completed.Hadfield (1969), p.344 Mylne's role was taken over by James Dadford, who had originally been engaged as resident engineer on the project in 1795.Hadfield (1969), p.343 Lack of funds resulted in the company ceasing to employ Dadford in 1800.


Decade of capital raising

Between 1800 and 1810 various unfruitful attempts were made to raise money to allow further building. Money from tolls and rents allowed for some improvements to be made to the basin at Gloucester in 1813.Hadfield (1969), p.345


Eventual completion

Following the Public Works Loans Act 1817 ( 57 Geo. 3. c. 34), it was possible for the company to borrow money from the Exchequer Bill Loan Commission. This, along with further share issues, provided enough money to bring the scheme to completion.Hadfield (1969), p.346 After these significant delays, the canal opened in April 1827. In the course of its construction the canal had cost £440,000 (). As opened, the canal was wide, deep and could take craft of up to . The longer of the two locks onto the canal proper was long.Hadfield (1969), p.348


Eventual dividends

By the middle of the 19th century it proved possible to pay a small dividend, the debt to the Exchequer Bill Loan Commission having been repaid with the help of a loan of £60,000 from the Pelican Life Assurance Company. In 1871 the last of the debts incurred in the course of funding the canal, including the Pelican loan, were paid off.Hadfield (1969), p.351


Sharpness New Docks

A new, larger entrance and tidal basin at Sharpness was completed in 1874; during this year the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal Company acquired the Worcester and Birmingham Canal Company. At this point, the canal company was renamed the Sharpness New Docks and Gloucester and Birmingham Navigation Company. Where the Severn Railway Bridge (completed in 1879) passed over the canal, a swing section was constructed to avoid restricting headroom.


Purton hulks

In 1909, following a collapse in the bank of the river, the canal company's chief engineer A. J. Cullis called for old vessels to be run aground along the bank of the Severn, near Purton, to create a makeshift tidal erosion barrier to reinforce the narrow strip of land between the river and canal.
Barge A barge is typically a flat-bottomed boat, flat-bottomed vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. Original use was on inland waterways, while modern use is on both inland and ocean, marine water environments. The firs ...
s,
trow A trow was a type of cargo boat found in the past on the rivers River Severn, Severn and River Wye, Wye in Great Britain and used to transport goods. Features The Mast (sailing), mast could be taken down so that the trow could go under bridg ...
s and
schooner A schooner ( ) is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel defined by its Rig (sailing), rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more Mast (sailing), masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than t ...
s were "hulked" at high tide, and have since filled with
silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension (chemistry), suspension with water. Silt usually ...
. More boats have been added, including the schooner ''Katherine Ellen'' which was impounded in 1921 for running guns to the IRA, the Kennet barge ''Harriett'', and ferrocement barges built in World War II. In 1999, Paul Barnett started a privately funded research project to record the 81 vessels at the site, recognised as the largest ships' graveyard in mainland Britain. In 2010 British Waterways took control of the site in an attempt to protect it.


Bridge-houses

Eight of the bridges have Neo-classical bridge-men's houses in the near vicinity. These were built in the early 19th century when the volume of traffic on the canal made it important that all the bridges could open at night so that vessels could meet the tides at Sharpness. At that time, the other bridge-men lived in existing houses that were close enough to their bridges. The classical-style bridge-men's houses were originally symmetrical in plan with gables on each elevation. Each had a living room, one bedroom, a scullery at the back and a porch with Doric columns at the front. In later years, the houses have been extended to provide more accommodation and modern facilities. Today, the houses are in private ownership, and most of them are
Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...
. File:Rea Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg, Rea Bridge Bridge-house File:Sellars Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg, Sellars Bridge Bridge-house File:Hardwicke Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg, Hardwicke Bridge (now removed) Bridge-house File:Parkend Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg, Parkend Bridge Bridge-house File:Fretherne Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg, Fretherne Bridge Bridge-house File:Splatt Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg, Splatt Bridge Bridge-house File:Cambridge_Arms_Bridge_Bridgehouse.jpg, Cambridge Arms Bridge Bridge-house File:Purton Upper Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg, Purton Upper Bridge Bridge-house


Modern times

In 1905 traffic exceeded one million tons for the first time.Hadfield (1969), p.352 Oil was added to the list of cargoes carried by the canal, with bulk oil carriers taking fuel to storage tanks sited to the south of Gloucester. In 1937 the canal was navigated by the
submarines A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or info ...
and . The canal was nationalized in 1948. At the same time the Sharpness Dock Police which had policed the dock since 1874 were absorbed into the
British Transport Police British Transport Police (BTP; ) is a national special police force that polices the railway network of England, Wales and Scotland, which consists of over 10,000 miles of track and 3,000 stations and depots. BTP also polices the London Under ...
. In 1955 the Board of Survey of Canals and Inland Waterways released a report that, among other things, described the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal as carrying substantial traffic and offering scope for commercial development. The
River Cam The River Cam () is the main river flowing through Cambridge in eastern England. After leaving Cambridge, it flows north and east before joining the River Great Ouse to the south of Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely, at Pope's Corner. The total distanc ...
, which is subject to accretion due to industrial and agricultural runoff, is an important feeder for the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal. It was formerly navigable as the Cambridge Arm with one entrance lock leading to a basin and wharf at
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
, the limit of navigation due to mill weirs and low bridges on the Bristol to Gloucester road. The lock was missing and the basin abandoned by 1901. Most of the straightened channel has survived as flood defence improvements and is potentially still navigable, but the entrance is now blocked by a very low bridge at the site of the former lock. By the mid-1980s commercial traffic had largely come to a halt, the canal being given over to pleasure cruisers with the exception of a few passages by grain barges.Green (1999), p.27 The oil trade ceased in 1985 with the closure of the petroleum depot at
Quedgeley Quedgeley is a town and civil parish in the city of Gloucester district in Gloucestershire, England. A thin strip of land between the Severn and the Gloucester Ship Canal occupies the west, and the south-eastern part of the town is Kingsway Vil ...
.Paget-Tomlinson (2006), pp.124–125 In order to allow the A430 Gloucester southwestern bypass to be built the canal had to be diverted. This new cut eliminated a major problem which had plagued commercial traffic since opening: the sharp double bend in the canal. The new section of channel was opened on 6 May 2006. In January 2009 a project began to replace the Patch Bridge
swing bridge A swing bridge (or swing span bridge) is a movable bridge that can be rotated horizontally around a vertical axis. It has as its primary structural support a vertical locating pin and support ring, usually at or near to its center of gravit ...
with a motor-powered design instead of the former hand-cranked system. Today, the canal can be used by boats up to in length, in beam and in height. The maximum draft is . The canal links directly to the Stroudwater Navigation at Saul Junction, the only such flat crossing between two different canal companies anywhere in the world. File:Dutch Barge passing a swing bridge, on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal.jpg, A motorised Dutch barge passing a
swing bridge A swing bridge (or swing span bridge) is a movable bridge that can be rotated horizontally around a vertical axis. It has as its primary structural support a vertical locating pin and support ring, usually at or near to its center of gravit ...
on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal File:Gloucester and Sharpness Canal at Patch Bridge.jpg, The canal at Patch Bridge, near the Wildfowl Reserve at Slimbridge File:Berkeley.and.sharpness.canal.ts.jerwood.arp.jpg, The Sea Cadet training ship TS ''John Jerwood'' passes through Patch Bridge, on its way to the
River Severn The River Severn (, ), at long, is the longest river in Great Britain. It is also the river with the most voluminous flow of water by far in all of England and Wales, with an average flow rate of at Apperley, Gloucestershire. It rises in t ...
File:Gloucester and Sharpness.JPG, The canal at Saul Junction File:G&SCanal.JPG, The canal at the entrance to Gloucester docks


See also

*
Canals of the United Kingdom The canals of the United Kingdom are a major part of the network of inland waterways in the United Kingdom. They have a History of the British canal system, varied history, from use for irrigation and transport, through becoming the focus of the ...
* History of the British canal system


References


Bibliography

* * * *


External links


Gloucester Docks and the Sharpness Canal Past, Present and Future
* ttp://gsms.mister.red/ images & map of mile pegs (milestones) seen along the Gloucester & Sharpness canalbr> Stroud Voices (of local canals) - oral history site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gloucester And Sharpness Canal Canals linked to the River Severn Canals in England
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 ...
Stroud District Canals in Gloucestershire Works of Thomas Telford Canals opened in 1827 CGloucester 1827 establishments in England Gloucester Docks