The Hertford Union Canal
The Hereford and Union Canal is a short canal about a mile
long to be found in the London
Borough of Tower Hamlets linking the Regents canal to the lee Navigation, it
opened in 1830 and proved an immediate failure, was bought by the regents
Canal Company in 1857 and then the grand union in 1927.
The canal was first proposed in 1766 to provide a short
cut from the Thames to the River Lee
Navigation via the Regents Canal, which would avoid
the tidal Bow Back Rivers, which were tidal and a difficult passage.
Sir George Duckett was the chief promoter of the idea and an Act allowing construction was passed in May 1824. £50,000 was borrowed to pay for construction and Tolls set at a shilling (5p Sterling ) a Ton.
The chief engineer was Francis Giles and was completed in 1830. Unfortunately sound as the idea might have seemed at the time commercial success did not follow. Duckett’s canal or Duckett’s cut as it became known, then became a bit of an embarrassment with tolls totally waived in the hope of getting people to use it. Around 1850 it was dammed for a time as the regents canal was losing water to it and eventually in 1857 the regents canal took it over , re-opened it , dredged it and increased its width.
In 1929 it passed into the hands of the Grand Union together with the Regents Canal and was therefore nationalised with the railways passing first into the hands of the British transport Commission in 1948 and then to British Waterways in 1968, who now maintain it.