A towpath journey: Grand Union Canal
LAST month we took the first half of the journey south along the Grand Union Canal from Birmingham to London.
Built to link the capital of England to the capital of the canals, the 137-mile Grand Union Canal emerged in the 1920s as several small historic waterways combined to create a major route between the two cities.
On the Thames of the 18th century, boats were laden with exotic cargoes carried from all around the world: rum, tomatoes, sugar, cocoa, citrus fruits, coffee and (the nation’s favourite) tea and the canals were built to link the Thames docks to the new industrial Midlands.
Continuing our journey south after leaving Cosgrove, where the short Buckingham Arm heads west, the main canal continues over the River Ouse on a spectacular iron trough aqueduct, Great Ouse Aqueduct. Completed in 1811, it was the world’s first wide canal cast iron trough aqueduct, is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and has also been awarded a Transport Trust Red Wheel plaque.
Following the Ouse valley under stone bridges and over another aqueduct, the canal reaches the village of Great Linford. Linford Lake Nature Reserve is a wetland wildlife site which attracts waterfowl, wading birds, heron and occasionally great white egret.
The ‘new’ town of Milton Keynes (started in the 1970s, its population has now more than doubled) includes many surrounding villages including Bletchley and Fenny Stratford.
The Fenny Poppers, six small ceremonial cannons from the 1700s, are fired three times on St Martin’s Day (November 11) to commemorate the day in 1724 when the first stone was laid for the new parish church. Still used on special occasions, in June 2012 a salute was fired to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.
Just west of Fenny Stratford Lock is Bletchley Park, world famous for its work cracking codes and ciphers including the infamous Enigma Code used by the German Army during the Second World War. Also renowned as the birthplace of modern information technology, the site houses the National Museum of Computing. Beyond Soulbury Three Locks, the canal weaves between Linslade and Leighton Buzzard, home to one of the most popular narrow gauge railways in the country. It was on the track just outside town that the infamous 1963 Great Train Robbery took place.
Well-spaced locks carry the canal up to Marsworth Junction, where the Aylesbury Arm heads west. Marsworth Locks are alongside Tring Reservoirs, four reservoirs whose water is pumped by Tringford Pumping Station on the Wendover Arm to feed the canal’s summit level. The partially navigable Wendover Arm heads off at Bulbourne Junction, where old British Waterways workshops used to make wooden lock gates. The three-mile summit level provides brief respite before Cowroast Lock marks the start of the canal’s descent through Berkhamsted, a market town with the remains of a Norman castle where William the Conqueror received the English crown after the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
Descending past Hemel Hempstead, whose new town surrounds a historic centre, the canal passes several large paper mills in Apsley. Frogmore Paper Mill is the oldest mechanised paper mill in the world and birthplace of paper’s industrial revolution. The canal follows the River Gade south with several wider stretches of canal to navigate as it descends through Kings Langley. The tomb of the Black Prince’s brother, Edmund de Langley, is in the Norman church.
The M25 intrudes before calm restores beyond the ornamental Grove Bridge, ordered by the Earl of Essex before allowing canal builders across his land. Avoiding Watford’s outskirts, Cassiobury Park, also part of his gardens, provides a glorious stretch of parkland and woods, including an avenue of lime trees planted by Moses Cook in 1672.
At Rickmansworth, three rivers converge – the River Gade, the River
Chess at Batchworth Lock, and the River Colne and its valley below passing old chalk quarries, now havens for wildlife. Lakes, mills and woods continue down through several locks to Denham Deep Lock, the deepest on the Grand Union.
The canal skirts Uxbridge, site of the RAF Headquarters where Air Marshal Lord Dowding coordinated the Battle of Britain, and Cowley Lock marks the end of locks for a while. The Slough Arm heads west to Slough from Cowley Peachey Junction, while the mainline heads south through the conurbations. At Bull’s Bridge Junction, the Paddington Arm heads into the heart of London, and the mainline descends 12 locks including the Hanwell Flight down to Brentford. Syon House nearby has been home to the Dukes of Northumberland since 1594. Its interior was reworked in the 1700s by Scottish architect Robert Adams while the 55-acre gardens were landscaped by Capability Brown.
The section between Brentford Gauging Locks and Thames Lock is tidal, and boats are requested to use Brentford’s single lock to minimise water use. The manned Thames
Lock gives entry to the mighty River Thames opposite the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
The Grand Union Canal is the bold route built to link capital cities. It may arguably not have the quaintest lock gates or winding backwaters, but it is home to some of the most renowned and important canal village communities in the country, such as Stoke Bruerne and Braunston. It never lets you forget that the purpose of its water is the route it takes, and rightly owns its place in canal life, both historically and today.