Home   Sitemap       Canal Boat hire       Advertise Your Timeshare   Canal Boat Holiday Insurance  Contact    For Sale

The Ripon Canal

The Ripon Canal is one of England’s most Northernly waterways and was built to link Ripon  (one of this countries smallest Cities, with Medieval and Georgian architecture) to the river Ure at Oxclose locks, from whence passage to the River Ouse provides connection to other waterways. The length of the canal is 2.5 miles and it re-opened as a navigable waterway in 1996.

The purpose of the canal was chiefly to supply an outlet for local agricultural goods and the local Lead Mines at Ripon, while supplying Rippon with coal  from the Yorkshire coalfields.

Construction was authorised by an Act of parliament in 1767 as part of a larger scheme to generally improve navigation of the River Ure, from the River Swale to Oxclose, to provide a means of transporting cargo to York , Hill and wider destinations. The canal was designed to carry  “keels” which were 58 feet by 14.5 feet.

Work commenced in 1767 on a route surveyed by William Jessop, who was appointed Chief engineer with John Smeaton supervising and John smith acting as resident engineer and supervising work in progress.

The construction was complete by 1773 and in use by February of that year. Trade was steady and promising for the first few years, but by 1820 it became evident that the commissioners were failing to service the loans sought to finance the building of the canal, with interest accruing to £11,450. Consequently the commisioners were dismissed and the company taken over by creditors who formed the Company of Proprietors of the River Ure Navigation to Rippon, who then obtained a second Act of Parliament in June 1820 allowing them to raise £34,000 in shares, the improvements made allowing larger craft to navigate the waterway carrying up to 70 tons by the 1840’s.

The canal survived the construction of the Darlington to York railway in 1841, even though this competed directly for the coal cargoes, still making profits in that year, but 1846 saw the Leeds and Thirsk Railway purchase the canal, the terms requiring the canal to be kept in good order.

Ownership passed to the North Eastern Railway in 1854 as companies merged and gradually the canal became neglected, leaving the canal effectively disused by 1892.

The canal was not nationalised in 1948, but officially abandoned in 1958. However the abandonment met local opposition as did later plans to in-fill the canal , which resulted in the creation of the ripon Canal Company Ltd in 1961 largely by instigation of members of the Ripon Motor Boat Club, with the intent of leasing and gradually restoring the canal.  The lower half became navigable in 1985.

 Encouraged by the Inland Waterways Association the North Yorkshire Council the Ripon Canal Society was formed in 1983 and restoration to Ripon was finally completed by 1996 as part of the “River Ure and Ouse Recreational Subject Plan”. The society then disbanded in 1997 donating remaining funds to the cost of works on the repairs to Linton Lock on the river Ure.