Canal Boat — February 2018

canalboat.co.uk Canal Boat February 2018 43

HISTORY

canal was incorporated in them and ceased

to exist as a separate entity. Today freight

has left the docks, and the Isle is occupied

by the Canary Wharf tower and other

developments (and familiar to TV viewers

from the title sequence of EastEnders).

Meanwhile down the river at Woolwich,

the Royal Arsenal Canal’s only purpose

disappeared when the arsenal itself went.

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

If the Grand Surrey Canal had lasted just a

little longer, it might have still been with us

today. As the name suggests, it was

conceived as a rather more grandiose plan

to serve several parts of the county –

including Kingston, Mitcham and Epsom.

All that was actually built was a four-mile

canal from the Thames to Camberwell, and

a half-mile arm to Peckham.

But it performed a useful role carrying

timber, effectively as an extension of the

Surrey Docks, until docks and canal closed

around 1969. It was filled in (there had been

drownings), the Camberwell end formed

the nucleus of the new Burgess Park, and a

new road used its bed near Deptford.

If the canal had somehow survived,

might it have provided some much-needed

mooring space in the capital today?

OVER-OPTIMISTIC IDEAS

Some canals simply didn’t live up to their

promoters’ hopes. A good example is the

Croydon Canal: conceived to connect

Croydon to the Grand Surrey Canal (and so

to the docks), it involved some heavy

engineering with 28 locks in the first couple

of miles as it climbed away from the

Thames into what is now south London, but

was then open countryside.

By the time the nine-mile canal was open

in 1809 it had cost three times the estimate,

it carried disappointingly little cargo, and it

sold out to a railway company who filled it

in and used much of the canal bed for their

line. Today, a canal reservoir survives as a

boating lake, and two fragments of the

actual canal survive in water, as a nature

reserve and a long thin park pond.

The Fleet Canal, a conversion of the tidal

length of the River Fleet, was another flop:

not helped by Smithfield Meat Market’s

“dung, gut and blood” ending up in its

waters, it was little used, and was covered

over in the 1730s. And the Kensington

Canal, another canalisation of a creek, was

an abject failure. Tidal restrictions and

silting added to its problems, and the

upper sections disappeared under a

railway by 1863 – although the lower end

survived, and the final length forms a

water feature in a new development today.

But if these canals might seem to have

proven over-optimistic, they’re as nothing

compared to the 1826 Grand Imperial Ship

Canal, whose 130 miles of ship-sized canal

would have linked London to Portsmouth.

However in spite of some money having

been raised, it was abandoned before

construction even began.

The London Canal Museum is situated on New

Wharf Road, 5-10 minutes walk from King’s

Cross and St Pancras stations, and backing on

to Battlebridge Basin on the Regent’s Canal. It

is open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to

4.30pm. The temporary exhibition London’s

Lost Canals is on display until April 2018.

The museum is a converted Victorian ice

house, with two huge ice wells under the

building which in the days before refrigeration

were used to store ice imported from

Scandinavia for distribution around London.

The museum therefore includes a display

about the ice trade, alongside its exhibits

dealing with London waterways, boats and

cargoes, horseboating and more.

For more information contact 020 7713 0836

or see canalmuseum.org.uk.

LONDON CANAL MUSEUM

CB

A rare visitor to the Dartford & Crayford

Testing a torpedo in the Royal Arsenal Canal