On Wednesday, April 25, 2007 10:45 PM [GMT+1=CET], tiamiboat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I wonder > how many of the new wide beam lot know anything about how the GU > South is only a barge canal (officially) to the southern end of > Berkhamsted. The rest up to Braunston is still supposedly up to the > disgression of BW unless someone can tell me better. I wonder where this idea came from? The history is actually complicated. The Grand Junction was designed as a barge canal in 1792, and was presumably defined as such in its enabling Act. If my presumption is right, then unless Parliament has at any time replealed the relevant clausee of that Act then what was the Grand Junction is still a barge canal along its whole length, whatever BW or anyone else might try to enforce. But in practice it never really functioned as a barge canal for the whole of its length. As early as 1805, when plans for the (Old) Grand Union (i.e. Norton to Foxton) were being made, the Grand Junction Company successfully blocked its being built to barge width, as they didn't want the problem of barges off the Trent & the links throgh Leicestyer using Blisworth & Braunston tunnels, necessitating one-way working. So the broad locks on the northern sections of the GJC were used not by broad boats but by pairs of narrowboats. This use of "buttying" long predates the introduction of motor boats. On the southern part of the GJC, broad vessels were commonplace, but I'm far from clear in my mind where the northern limit of their trading was. When, post 1929, the GJC became part of the new Grand Union Canal, the new company wanted to improve the whole line to the edge of Birmingham to barge standard, the Warwick canals which form the northern secion of that route having been built narrow. With some Government financ, they replaced the narrow locks on the Warwick canals with wide ones, but were refused furher Government aid to widen the track. They tried an experimental service with couple of wide boats (in beam something between narrowboats and the full beam of the locks) built for the purpose, one of them by the GUCCo and one by FMC. These proved that the track had a number of places couldn't pass. I believe some of these were on the former Grand Junction. The earliest reference I've seen to the Grand Junction being a barge canal only as far as Berkhamsted was in a copy of Bradshaw (1901 I believe, but I wouldn't swear to the date). That strikes me as very odd since at that date broad-beam vessels were being built of there, specifically on the Wendover Branch, and were, I believe, trading as far north as Leighton Buzzard (although I can't point to any eviodence for that last point). And,of course, broad-beam vessels are being built nowadays on the Warwick canals, so needing to use the northen length of the former Grand Junction if they are to go anywhere. So my view of the Grand Junction is that was was an attempt to build a barge canal which only proved successful over the southern part of its route. But I believe that legally it probably still is a barge canal. Mike Stevens narrowboat Felis Catus III web-site www.mike-stevens.co.uk Defend the waterways. Visit the web site www.saveourwaterways.org.uk
