Petworth Canal

Last updated May 01, 2019

The Petworth Canal was one of Britain's shorter lasting canals, opened in 1795 and dismantled in 1826. Upon completion of the Rother Navigation, the Earl of Egremont used his estate workforce to build the 1¼ mile long canal from just upstream of the Shopham Cut to Haslingbourne, with two locks, each with a rise of 8 feet and 6 inches. The Haslingbourne Stream was diverted to provide the water supply, and still flows in the canal bed from Haslingbourne to the site of Haines Lock. The initial intention was to extend the canal through the Shimmings Valley to Hamper's Green on the north side of Petworth, then northwards to join the Wey Navigation at Shalford.

George O'Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of EgremontFRS of Petworth House in Sussex and Orchard Wyndham in Somerset, was a British peer, a major landowner and a great art collector. He was interested in the latest scientific advances. He was an agriculturist and a friend of the agricultural writer Arthur Young, and was an enthusiastic canal builder who invested in many commercial ventures for the improvement of his estates. He played a limited role in politics.

Petworth is a small town and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the junction of the A272 east-west road from Heathfield to Winchester and the A283 Milford to Shoreham-by-Sea road. Some twelve miles (21 km) to the south west of Petworth along the A285 road lies Chichester and the south-coast. The parish includes the settlements of Byworth and Hampers Green and covers an area of 2,690 hectares. In 2001 the population of the parish was 2,775 persons living in 1,200 households of whom 1,326 were economically active. At the 2011 Census the population was 3,027.

Shalford is a village and civil parish in Surrey, England on the A281 Horsham road immediately south of Guildford. It has a railway station which is between Guildford and Dorking on the Reading to Gatwick Airport line.

Legal authority

Construction of the branch to Haslingbourne bridge was included in the Act of Parliament,^[1] numbered [2151] passed in 1791, titled;

An act of parliament, also called primary legislation, are statutes passed by a parliament (legislature). Act of the Oireachtas is an equivalent term used in the Republic of Ireland where the legislature is commonly known by its Irish name, Oireachtas. It is also comparable to an Act of Congress in the United States.

"An Act to enable the Earl of Egremont to make and maintain the River Rother navigable, from the Town of Midhurst, to a certain Meadow, called the Railed Pieces, or Stopham Meadow in the Parish of Stopham, and a navigable Cut, from the said River to the River Arun, at or near Stopham Bridge, in the county of Sussex; and for other Purposes."

Construction

Digging began early in 1795, employing about twenty navvies. In August lock gates were being hung and a bridge built at Haines Lock. Sandstone from the nearest quarries at Fittleworth and Upperton would have been used for the bridges and locks. Coping stones are recorded as being barged from Todham and Moorland locks near Midhurst by Edmund Sayer. The navigation was open by October 1795.

Fittleworth is a village and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England located seven kilometres (3 miles) west from Pulborough on the A283 road and three miles (5 km) south east from Petworth. The village has an Anglican church, a primary school and one pub, The Swan. It is within the ancient divisions of the Bury Hundred and the Rape of Arundel. The village is bounded south by the Rother Navigation.

Upperton is a hamlet in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England. Part of Tillington civil parish it lies on the Tillington to Lurgashall road 1.4 miles (2.2 km) northwest of Petworth.

Coping consists of the capping or covering of a wall.

Plans for extension

The Earl of Egremont wanted a safe inland waterway that would link London on the River Thames with the south coast and the naval base at Portsmouth. Coastal shipping at that time faced serious hazards such as the notorious Goodwin Sands, where the Earl's own two-year-old brigantine Egremont was wrecked in 1797. During wars with France there were military dangers as well. The initial intention was to extend the canal through the Shimmings Valley to Hamper's Green on the north side of Petworth, then northwards to join the Wey Navigation at Shalford.^[2] Canal engineer William Jessop believed a route could be found past Northchapel, Shillinglee, Dunsfold and Alfold, then following the Cranleigh stream through Bramley to Shalford. A branch from Alfold to Horsham was also proposed. Agriculturalist Arthur Young advocated the scheme as a means to bring lime for the farms to improve their productivity. The Earl's estate surveyor Thomas Upton carried out a more detailed survey in 1793 and concluded that the 32 mile route would rise some 220 feet to cross the watershed into Surrey, with as many as nine locks needed just to climb 58 feet to the north side of Petworth. He suggested that a 17-mile extension of the Arun Navigation from Newbridge to the River Wey would be more practical. Even in that year when Canal Mania was at its height it was apparent that extension of the Petworth Canal could not be cost effective.

The River Thames, known alternatively in parts as the Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At 215 miles (346 km), it is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom, after the River Severn.

Portsmouth is a port city in Hampshire, England, with a total population of 205,400 residents. The city of Portsmouth is nicknamed Pompey and is mainly built on Portsea Island, a flat, low-lying island measuring 24 square kilometres in area, just off the south-east coast of Hampshire. Uniquely, Portsmouth is the only island city in the United Kingdom, and is the only city whose population density exceeds that of London.

Goodwin Sands is a 10-mile (16 km) long sandbank at the southern end of the North Sea lying 6 miles (10 km) off the Deal coast in Kent, England. The area consists of a layer of approximately 25 m (82 ft) depth of fine sand resting on an Upper Chalk platform belonging to the same geological feature that incorporates the White Cliffs of Dover. The banks lie between 0.5 m above the low water mark to around 3 m (10 ft) below low water, except for one channel that drops to around 20 m (66 ft) below. Tides and currents are constantly shifting the shoals.

Trade

The main products carried on the canal were chalk, coal and timber. Coal from Newcastle or South Wales was transferred from coastal ships into barges at Arundel. Chalk was barged up the River Arun from pits leased and operated by the Earl at Houghton and Amberley. Timber and all kinds of timber products, including charcoal and oak bark for tanning were barged out from the Peworth area, although there are few records of what passed through Haslingbourne. A lime kiln was operated at Haslingbourne wharf,^[3] and some lime barged down the canal. Most of the Petworth trade however went to Coultershaw wharf on the Rother navigation, which was further away from the town but was on the well maintained turnpike road to Chichester. There was no extra toll for using the Petworth canal but this also saved the barge masters having to travel through two locks. From east of Petworth it was often cheaper to cart goods to and from the River Arun, which was free of tolls below Pallingham, avoiding the Rother Navigation tolls payable on passing through Stopham Lock.

Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is an ionic salt called calcium carbonate or CaCO₃. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite shells (coccoliths) shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores. Flint (a type of chert) is very common as bands parallel to the bedding or as nodules embedded in chalk. It is probably derived from sponge spicules or other siliceous organisms as water is expelled upwards during compaction. Flint is often deposited around larger fossils such as Echinoidea which may be silicified (i.e. replaced molecule by molecule by flint).

Newcastle upon Tyne, commonly known as Newcastle, is a city in Tyne and Wear, North East England, 103 miles (166 km) south of Edinburgh and 277 miles (446 km) north of London on the northern bank of the River Tyne, 8.5 mi (13.7 km) from the North Sea. Newcastle is the most populous city in the North East, and forms the core of the Tyneside conurbation, the eighth most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. Newcastle is a member of the UK Core Cities Group and is a member of the Eurocities network of European cities.

South Wales is the region of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, mid Wales to the north, and west Wales to the west. With an estimated population of around 2.2 million, which is almost three-quarters of the whole of Wales, Cardiff has approximately 400,000, Swansea has approximately 250,000 and Newport has 150,000. The region is loosely defined, but it is generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, extending westwards to include Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. In the western extent, from Swansea westwards, local people would probably recognise that they lived in both south Wales and west Wales. The Brecon Beacons national park covers about a third of South Wales, containing Pen y Fan, the highest British mountain south of Cadair Idris in Snowdonia.

Closure

Dredging was carried out in 1824 and the banks repaired,^[4] but when repairs to locks on the Rother navigation were urgently needed in 1826 the Earl decided to close the underused canal and reuse materials from the locks, which were completely dismantled that summer. This paid no regard to the landowner's legal duty to maintain the navigation. The cutting across the field below Haines Lock was then filled in.

The canal today

The wharf at Haslingbourne has entirely disappeared and an electricity sub-station and a former water treatment plant, which pumped water from springs at the foot of Gore Hill to Petworth, are on the site. The area is now used for storage of construction machinery. Below Haslingbourne Cottages the stream flows in the canal bed which is cut through sandstone beds, creating a shaded artificial gorge rich in mosses and lichens. Emerging from this cutting at the site of Upper Lock the canal follows a straight course across low lying boggy ground, fenced off as a nature reserve area. Reaching the site of Haines Lock the stream can be heard pouring through a broken down weir in the undergrowth as it turns eastward into its natural course. The west bank of the canal here runs into the pasture for some twenty metres and the position of the levelled course beyond can just be discerned. Beyond the slightly higher ground here, as the Haslingbourne Stream again comes close to the canal, the embankments can be seen forming a straight line across the floodplain to the river. A pond near the river is the site of a weir and tumblebay.

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References

↑ Act of Parliament [2151] of 1791
↑ P A L Vine, London's Lost Route to Midhurst The Earl of Egremont's Navigation pp 64-67
↑ P A L Vine, London's Lost Route to Midhurst The Earl of Egremont's Navigation p 73
↑ P A L Vine, London's Lost Route to Midhurst The Earl of Egremont's Navigation p 73

Coordinates: 50°57′51″N0°36′10″W / 50.96417°N 0.60278°W / 50.96417; -0.60278

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[1] Act of Parliament [2151] of 1791

[2] P A L Vine, London's Lost Route to Midhurst The Earl of Egremont's Navigation pp 64-67

[3] P A L Vine, London's Lost Route to Midhurst The Earl of Egremont's Navigation p 73

[4] P A L Vine, London's Lost Route to Midhurst The Earl of Egremont's Navigation p 73