42 February 2018 Canal Boat canalboat.co.uk
LITTLE-USED SURVIVORS
A couple of ‘lost’ waterways aren’t actually
abandoned – they’re tidal creeks which have
lost the freight traffic which once sustained
them, and are now are sought out only by
intrepid boaters, and the occasional visit by a
tideway cruise from St Pancras Cruising Club.
The Barking and Ilford Navigation, based on
the River Roding, was once a busy waterway.
Not only did it carry ‘night soil’ (sewage for
fertiliser), chemicals, tar, and the products of
breweries and tanneries (so it’s no surprise
that some of the locals complained about the
smell!), it’s not widely known that it was home
to the world’s largest fishing fleet in the 1850s,
with many smaller craft employed to ferry the
cargoes from the fishing vessels out at sea to
the creek. Rail-served east coast ports put
paid to this trade, and the commercial use of
the waterway declined.
Likewise the Dartford & Crayford
Navigation (based on two tidal creeks)
carried 200,000 tons of trade annually to the
local flour and gunpowder mills, but had lost
its last traffic by the early 1980s when the lock
which retained water at low tide was
abandoned. Today there is a proposal to
restore it.
OVERTAKEN BY EVENTS
The City Canal cut across the top of the Isle of
Dogs – a loop of the river between Blackwall
and Limehouse. As the area’s docks grew, the
The London-Greenwich railway crosses the Grand Surrey Canal near DeptfordEntrance to the Fleet Canal: the truth was a little less pleasant than this painting suggests, thanks to detritus from Smithfield Meat Market...A nearby scene today: the canal is now Surrey Canal Road