The Canal Story The Early Days

Two hundred years ago the construction of inland waterways, or "canal mania" as the period is sometimes known, was at its height during the agricultural and industrial revolutions of the 18th century. Canals were seen as a cheaper and more efficient means of moving bulk cargoes than by waggons overland. The Basingstoke Canal was proposed to develop the already thriving agricultural trade of central Hampshire. Basingstoke was an established market centre and so was chosen as the terminus for a 37-mile long canal, which would link with the Thames via a 3-mile length of the Wey Navigation, and thus create a 70-mile waterway to the Pool of London. The Parliamentary Bill was passed in 1778 but construction was delayed due to the financial crisis arising during the American War of Independence. Construction, which began in 1778, took six years, and included the building of 29 locks, a 1,230-yard long tunnel through Greywell Hill and the 50-yard Little Tunnel Bridge at Mapledurwell, 69 bridges, 5 lock houses, 4 wharves and 3 warehouses. Taking account also of such engineering works as the mile-long cutting at Deepcut and the 1,000-yard long Ash Embankment across the Blackwater Valley, the navigation was completed in an astonishingly short time. This is especially significant in that navvies     were equipped with little more than wheelbarrows, picks and shovels. (Restoration of the canal, starting in the mid 1970s, took 16 years!). The canal was constructed to allow passage of craft up to 72ft long and 13ft wide.     The canal was opened on 4th September 1794, and while it served its purpose, carrying timber and produce to London and bringing back coal, it was not a commercial success. The original canal company faced serious financial problems, roads improved, the waterway did not form part of a through route and like all canals the advent of the railway took away trade. How it survived is a fascinating story chronicled in "London's Lost Route to Basingstoke" by P.A.L.Vine, first published in 1968 and reprinted in 1994 by Alan Sutton. Vine, in his book, says: "The completion of the Basingstoke Canal heralded a new era in canal building. It was the first of the so-called agricultural waterways. Hitherto canals had been developed in the growing industrial areas around Birmingham and Leeds. Now the wealthier landowners of Surrey and Hampshire had built a canal: not to carry raw materials or manufactured products between ports, factories and large towns, but to open up the countryside to enable the latest agricultural techniques to be used on the underdeveloped land". The fact that it did survive, if not thrive, during the first half of the 19th century was due to a succession of speculative owners who periodically foresaw a profitable future in linking the canal with other waterways to form an inland waterway route from the ports of Bristol, Portsmouth and Southampton to London.

By 1834, only 40 years after opening, the canal was already in a derelict state through lack of use, but it was revitalised more than once to serve local developments. It was used to carry materials for the construction of the London to Southampton Railway which was completed to Basingstoke in 1839. The canal again provided a means of transporting materials to build the military camp at Aldershot, started in 1854. Then in 1894, the canal was widened and deepened, to serve the short-lived brickworks at Up Nately. Commercial traffic to Basingstoke ceased in 1910. Its subsequent survival was largely due to Mr A.J.Harmsworth who worked on the canal as a carpenter, carter and bargeman before buying it in 1922 and trading on it, both for commercial carrying with coal and timber to Woking and for pleasure boat hire, until he died in 1947. The canal was auctioned two years later and the new owner, Mr S.E.Cooke formed the New Basingstoke Canal Co Ltd. in 1950 but the canal was not maintained for navigation. By the mid 1960s the waterway lay semi-derelict:     The lock gates were rotting, the water channel was choked by weed and silt and the towpath was overgrown. One of the Deepcut locks, 1970     Establishing navigation rights, 1967 Its condition prompted a group of local canal enthusiasts to try and save it.     They formed the Surrey and Hampshire Canal Society in 1966 which campaigned for public ownership and a policy of restoration with the help of voluntary workers. Widespread public support prompted both Hampshire and Surrey County Councils to purchase the canal compulsorily which was finally completed in 1976 under powers granted by the Countryside Act of 1968   (Based on text by Dieter Jebens)

See also -

the Harmsworth connection

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Last updated August 2004