Gloucester and Sharpness Canal

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File:Gloucester and Sharpness Canalmap.jpg

A map of the canal from 1933

Template:Gloucester and Sharpness Canal map The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal (also known as the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal) is a ship canal in the west of England, between Gloucester and Sharpness, completed in 1827. For much of its length the canal runs close to the tidal River Severn, but it cuts off a significant loop in the river, at a once-dangerous bend near Arlingham. It was once the broadest and deepest canal in the world. The canal is Template:Convert<ref name="IWA">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> long.

Canal planning and constructionEdit

File:Glocester and Berkeley Canal Company 1794.jpg

Founder's share of the Glocester and Berkeley Canal Company, issued 29 September 1794, printed on vellum. The proprietors of this canal were authorised to raise the sum of £140,000 to be divided into shares of £100 each. If the former sum be insufficient, they could raise a further sum of £60,000.<ref>"The History of Cheltenham and its Environs", Cheltenham, Printed and published by H. Ruff, 1803. p. 318</ref>

Template:Infobox UK legislation 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 and civil engineer Robert Mylne. In 1793 an act of Parliament, the Template:Visible anchor (33 Geo. 3. c. 97) was obtained authorising the raising of a total of £200,000.<ref name=hadfield342>Hadfield (1969), p.342</ref> 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 Template:Convert of the canal had been completed.<ref name=hadfield344>Hadfield (1969), p.344</ref> Mylne's role was taken over by James Dadford, who had originally been engaged as resident engineer on the project in 1795.<ref name=hadfield343>Hadfield (1969), p.343</ref> Lack of funds resulted in the company ceasing to employ Dadford in 1800.<ref name=hadfield344/>

Decade of capital raisingEdit

Between 1800 and 1810 various unfruitful attempts were made to raise money to allow further building.<ref name=hadfield344/> Money from tolls and rents allowed for some improvements to be made to the basin at Gloucester in 1813.<ref name=hadfield345>Hadfield (1969), p.345</ref>

Eventual completionEdit

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.<ref name=hadfield346>Hadfield (1969), p.346</ref> After these significant delays, the canal opened in April 1827. In the course of its construction the canal had cost £440,000 (Template:Inflation).<ref name=hadfield348 /> As opened, the canal was Template:Convert wide, Template:Convert deep and could take craft of up to Template:Convert. The longer of the two locks onto the canal proper was Template:Convert long.<ref name=hadfield348>Hadfield (1969), p.348</ref>

Eventual dividendsEdit

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.<ref name=hadfield348/> In 1871 the last of the debts incurred in the course of funding the canal, including the Pelican loan, were paid off.<ref name=hadfield351>Hadfield (1969), p.351</ref>

Sharpness New DocksEdit

A new, larger entrance and tidal basin at Sharpness was completed in 1874;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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<ref name="EPT124" /> to avoid restricting headroom.

Purton hulksEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Barges, trows and schooners were "hulked" at high tide, and have since filled with silt. 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2010 British Waterways took control of the site in an attempt to protect it.<ref name=bbcpurton>Template:Cite news</ref>

Bridge-housesEdit

{{ safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= {{ safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= Template:Ambox }} }} 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.

Rea Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg

Rea Bridge Bridge-house
Sellars Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg

Sellars Bridge Bridge-house
Hardwicke Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg

Hardwicke Bridge (now removed) Bridge-house
Parkend Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg

Parkend Bridge Bridge-house
Fretherne Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg

Fretherne Bridge Bridge-house
Splatt Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg

Splatt Bridge Bridge-house
Cambridge Arms Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg

Cambridge Arms Bridge Bridge-house
Purton Upper Bridge Bridgehouse.jpg

Purton Upper Bridge Bridge-house

Modern timesEdit

In 1905 traffic exceeded one million tons for the first time.<ref name=hadfield352>Hadfield (1969), p.352</ref> 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.<ref name=SevernTraders27 /> In 1937 the canal was navigated by the submarines Template:Ship and Template:Ship.<ref>Tall and Kemp (1996), p.64</ref> The canal was nationalized in 1948.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> At the same time the Sharpness Dock Police which had policed the dock since 1874 were absorbed into the British Transport Police.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The River Cam, which is subject to accretion due to industrial and agricultural runoff, is an important feeder for the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It was formerly navigable as the Cambridge Arm<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> with one entrance lock leading to a basin and wharf at Cambridge, 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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.<ref name=SevernTraders27>Green (1999), p.27</ref> The oil trade ceased in 1985 with the closure of the petroleum depot at Quedgeley.<ref name=EPT124>Paget-Tomlinson (2006), pp.124–125</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In January 2009 a project began to replace the Patch Bridge swing bridge with a motor-powered design instead of the former hand-cranked system.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Today, the canal can be used by boats up to Template:Cvt in length, Template:Cvt in beam and Template:Cvt in height. The maximum draft is Template:Cvt.<ref name="IWA"/>

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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Dutch Barge passing a swing bridge, on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal.jpg

A motorised Dutch barge passing a swing bridge on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal
Gloucester and Sharpness Canal at Patch Bridge.jpg

The canal at Patch Bridge, near the Wildfowl Reserve at Slimbridge
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The Sea Cadet training ship TS John Jerwood passes through Patch Bridge, on its way to the River Severn
Gloucester and Sharpness.JPG

The canal at Saul Junction
G&SCanal.JPG

The canal at the entrance to Gloucester docks