I’m a fan of the Kennet and Avon

Some of you might recall my Monday Walk alongside this canal last year. It was glorious day’s hike from Bradford-on-Avon to Bath, and it helped make my mind up that Bradford was where I want to live long term. The plans to make that a reality are now slowly coming to fruition. I’ll tell you more about those plans another day.

Following a parliamentary act of law in the 1700’s work began on the canal section in early 1790s and it opened in 1810. For the first 30 years trade was burgeoning (sorry I know I should probably say flourishing but we are in the middle of squares!) but then in 1847 Great Western Railway opened their railway line.

Five years later this transport competitor had charge of the canal, and unsurprisingly didn’t make a huge effort to either maintain the canal or promote it as an alternative to their own railway. Within a decade profits had declined significantly, and within less than 20 years wharfs were closing and locks were becoming inoperable. There was an attempt in the mid 1920s to close the canal but the government rejected the application and the railway was charged with improving their maintenance of the canal. Transport though continued to decline and by the 1950s parts of the canal were no longer navigable. And actually today a section east of here is blocked again as a boat sunk over the weekend!

Fortunately however for all of us there is a Trust clearing today’s issue and there were also a lot of canal fans out throughout the 1950s and 60s who ran campaigns to restore the canal were fought in parliament. Eventually those campaigns were successful and restoration began in the mid 1970s, however it wasn’t until 1990 that the whole length of it was fully restored. The canal was formally re-opened that year by Queen Elizabeth II, and I travelled on it three years later with friends. We didn’t sink our boat, and I even managed to steer it round the sharp turn to get onto this aqueduct!