The Droitwich Canal
The Droitwicjh canal is composed of two parts: The
Droitwich Barge Canal –and the Droitwich Junction Canal.
The Droitwich Barge Canal is a broad canal that opened in
1771 to link Droitwich Spa to the River Severn at Hawford Mill.
The Droitwich Junction Canal is a narrow canal opening in
1845 linking Droitwich to to the Worcester and Birmingham Canal.
Both were built to service the local salt industry from
the natural brine springs, which they did until the 1920’s after which when
the canals were abandoned having fallen into disuse.
Droitwich has been a centre of salt production since Roman
times, the major problem being the means of transport to get the product to
market at a reasonable cost. To this end a canal was proposed around
improvements to the River Salwarpe supported
by an Act of Parliament in 1662, but the project was abandoned in
1675. Nothing then happened until1703 when another Act of Parliament was
obtained , followed by a third in 1747, but these efforts came to nothing,
which caused some concern as salt production was increasing and the problem
of transportation increasing. Finally Droitwich Council sought the advice of
James Brindley who surveyed a route from Droitwich to the river Severn and
yet another Act of Parliament was applied for and granted, this time meeting
with success as the construction of a Broad canal started shortly afterwards
being complete by 1771. The canal was designed to carry Severn Trows which
were 64 ft long ang 14’ 6” wide and true to Brindleys typical approach it
followed the contours of the land, rather than
travelling “as the crow flies”, in order to minimise the number of locks and
cuttings involved.
The resident engineer was John Priddey and the finished
canal measured 5.7 miles in length and furthermore was a commercial success
paying out its first dividend to shareholders in 1775. Trade declined a bit
when another brine source was discovered at Stoke Prior in 1828, with the
Railways inevitably proving a major competitor as they developed, However
this did not prevent the establishment of the Droitwich Junction Canal in
1854, which was built to link the Barge Canal to the Worcester and
Birmingham Canal at Hanbury. This was a narrow canal of only 1.5 miles but
containing 6 locks and used the river Salwarpe to connect to the Barge
Canal, the Barge lock constructed at the junction of the Barge Canal with
the River, to allow for fluctuations in water levels, the main cargo
continued to be salt, though the dimensions
of the boats it could carry were 71.5ft X 7ft. The railways as ever marked
the demise of the waterways with the last cargoes passing the Barge canal
and Junction canal were in 1916 and 1928 respectively. |The canals were
abandoned in 1939.
Restoration started in 1973 with the formation of the
Droitwich Canals Trust and steady progress was made with grants from the
Heritage Lottery Fund and other sources, the major restoration is now
complete pending completion in 2010? … Or later.