Kennet and Avon Canal
| Kennet and Avon Canal | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| location | Southern england |
| length | 140 km |
| Beginning | River Avon in Bristol Harbor |
| The End | Thames at Reading |
| Descent structures | 106 |
| Used river | River Kennet |
| 120 m difference in altitude; Bruce tunnel | |
The Kennet and Avon Canal is a narrowboat canal in southern England. It runs in a west-east direction and connects the rivers Avon and Kennet and thus the Bristol Channel (the estuary of the River Severn ) with the Thames . Together with the rivers mentioned, it forms a complete east-west inland waterway in southern England.
history
After the private Kennet and Avon Canal Company received royal permission to build a canal on April 17, 1794, the Kennet and Avon Canal was built in three sections. The canalization of the River Kennet between Reading and Newbury was completed from 1723. The Avon was navigable from the Bristol Channel to Bath from 1727 . The actual canal connection between these two river systems was completed in 1810 under the direction of the canal engineer John Rennie senior .
As early as 1852, the Great Western Railway Company bought the canal for £ 210,000 and subsequently avoided supporting commercial freight ship traffic on the canal. In this way the Great Western Railway Company got rid of an annoying competitor by buying him up and henceforth neglecting it. The passage of the canal became increasingly difficult due to increasingly poor maintenance and upkeep; the last one was a continuous passage from Reading to Bristol in 1951. After that, the canal fell into disrepair. However, plans to finally close the canal have been foiled by canal enthusiasts. A decade-long restoration phase followed. In August 1990 it was reopened by Queen Elisabeth . Nevertheless, there were still considerable technical problems in the period that followed, such as water scarcity, which only allowed limited boat traffic. The restoration of the canal could only be completed with a generous £ 25 million support from the Lottery for England's Historic Heritage Fund (Heritage Lottery Fund) and further donations of just under £ 5 million. The money was used for the repair of the locks and the bank reinforcement as well as the dredging of the canal bed. Even environmental aspects and barrier-free access to the canal for disabled people were not forgotten.
Today, therefore, the canal not only serves recreational shipping, but also the population as an enthusiastically accepted local recreation area, as a sports facility for joggers, hikers and cyclists and, last but not least, as a commercial basis for newly created jobs in the charter companies for recreational boats, the so-called narrowboats, as well as in Tourism industry.
Bath to Devizes
Bath itself is a tourist highlight in southern England. Particularly noteworthy are the Roman baths, fed by the only hot springs in England. From the point of view of the Kennet and Avon Canal, which crosses Bath, the Pulteney Bridge and the weir are particularly noteworthy. In the course of the construction of the canal, the Sydney Gardens , a park, were cut through in Bath .
In Claverton, a few miles east of Bath, there is a restored water pump built by John Rennie in 1812, water-powered by the River Avon, which is used to return the water used by the locks to the canal above the Widcombe lock staircase.
Another notable canal structure is the Dundas Aqueduct Canal Bridge , which is considered to be John Rennie's finest canal structure. It was named after the first chairman of the Kennet and Avon Canal Company, Charles Dundas. A later descendant of this gentleman is Lord David Dundas , the interpreter of the one-hit wonder "Jeans on".
But the highlight of the Kennet and Avon Canal is the Caen Hill Flight west of Devizes . This is a lock staircase made up of 29 locks, which leads the canal over a distance of only 3.6 km to a level 72.24 m higher. 16 locks on the lock staircase are built directly one behind the other, each only separated by a short section of canal and an equalization basin.
Even an experienced leisure crew needs several hours to master the lock stairs by hand.
This lock staircase was the last completed section of the canal when the canal was opened in 1810. This also applied to the reopening after the restoration in 1990. Only after a return pumping system had been installed in 1995 that was able to pump 1.2 million liters of water from the bottom lock to the top lock within an hour, limitations in lock operation due to lack of water could be avoided .
Devizes is a small town of 11,000 people. In the old Bear Hotel on the market square, both the members of the former Kennet and Avon Canal Society and, later in the 20th century, the members of the association for the restoration of the now dilapidated canal met as early as the 18th century.
Devizes is also the starting point for a canoe regatta held annually at Easter. The destination is Westminster (London), 117 miles (178 km) away, which even the fastest can only reach after a good 20 hours.
Devizes to Newbury
East of Devizes, the canal meanders over a long stretch without locks through the Pewsey Valley (Vale of Pewsey) . In the Pewsey Downs , a range of hills, a white horse is visible from afar , a larger-than-life outline drawing of a horse created by removing the sward (a so-called scratch image, see White Horse Hill , another white horse).
Only at Wooton Rivers, a small village, are another four locks that lead up to the apex of the Kennet and Avon Canal. The other locks in an easterly direction lead down into the valley to the Thames. But first, you have to pass through the only tunnel in the Kennet and Avon Canal. It is about 500 m long and has no towpath . Since motorized narrowboats only became popular since the First World War, this meant for the boats of the 19th century that were grained by horses that the crew of the narrowboat had to pull it through the tunnel on chains attached to the side of the tunnel walls, while the tow horse had to be pulled by another member of the crew was led across the tunnel.
At Crofton there is a lock staircase with 9 locks and the Crofton Pump Station. Two pumps powered by steam engines pump water from a nearby reservoir into the top of the canal. The pumping station is now a small technology museum that is open every day and houses the two oldest steam-operated pumps in the world that are still operational. They date from 1812 and 1845 and, after they were taken out of service in 1958, were made accessible to the public from 1970 after successful restoration as operated museum pumps.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Esmond Wright: The Visitor's Guide to Britain . 2nd Edition. Grange Books, London 1993, ISBN 1-85627-311-3 , pp. 79 .