Limehouse Cut

The Limehouse Cut is a largely straight, broad canal in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in east London which links the lower reaches of the Lee Navigation to the River Thames. Opening on 17 September 1770, and widened for two-way traffic by 1777, it is the oldest canal in the London area. Although short, it has a diverse social and industrial history. Formerly discharging directly into the Thames, since 1968 it has done so indirectly by a connection through Limehouse Basin.
The Cut is about long. It turns in a broad curve from Bow Locks, where the Lee Navigation meets Bow Creek; it then proceeds directly south-west through Tower Hamlets, finally making a short hook to connect to Limehouse Basin.

Origins

Before the Cut

Already in Elizabethan times there was a vigorous river trade between towns on the River Lea and the City of London, but watermen had to await the tides and row round the Isle of Dogs. Thus, in 1588 : The goods came from even further afield: by 1663 the road from Huntingdon and Cambridge was worn out "by reason of the great Trade of Barley and Mault, that cometh to Ware, and so is conveyed by water to the City of London". In 1739, 25,000 tons of malt and "all sorts of Grain, Flower, and other Commodities" went by the Lee. When the Limehouse Cut was built this traffic had increased to 36,000 tons—about a quarter of London's grain supply.

Planning and authorisation

The Limehouse Cut was authorised by the Lee Navigation Improvement Act 1767, after the engineer John Smeaton identified the need to make several cuts and to replace existing flash locks on the river with pound locks. It occurred to Smeaton as an afterthought to have a cut from Bromley to the Thames at Limehouse and his assistant Thomas Yeoman had the same idea. Thomas Yeoman was appointed as the surveyor to the River Lee trustees, and one of his first tasks was to investigate a route for the Limehouse Cut. As authorised by Parliament, it would provide a short-cut from the Lee Navigation at Bromley-by-Bow to the River Thames "at or near Limehouse Bridge Dock", avoiding the tortuous curves of the lower reaches of the River Lea at Bow Creek, and the need to wait for the tide to make the long detour round the Isle of Dogs. The trustees accepted Yeoman's proposed route on 14 September 1767, which would terminate at Dingley's Wharf at Limehouse.

Excavation and lock building

The contract for the excavation of the cut was split into two, with Charles Dingley, owner of the wharf and also a trustee, getting the southern section up to Rose Lane and Jeremiah Ilsley getting the northern section to Bow Locks. Dingley contracted to make his end of the canal for 10d. per foot; Ilsley's charge was 7d. per foot.
The construction of Bromley Lock was let as a separate contract, which was awarded to a millwright from Bromley called Mr Cooper, who also built some of the locks on the Edmonton Cut. The lock into the Thames was designed by Mr Collard, another of the trustees, who produced a model and plan for the structure. The estimated cost was £1,547, but Collard had miscalculated the length, and it had to be increased by, resulting in the estimate's rising to £1,696.

Inauguration and widening

By 1769, barges were using part of the cut, and in May 1770 an opening date of 2 July was set. However, of brickwork failed, and fell into the canal, delaying the opening until 17 September. There were further problems in December, when a bridge collapsed, blocking the canal, but once the teething problems were resolved, traffic increased steadily.
The cut was only wide enough for one barge, and in May 1772, a passing place was added, but by March 1773, the company had decided to widen the whole cut, so that barges could pass at any point. The contract for the work was given to Jeremiah Ilsley in June 1776, and the widened cut was operational from 1 September 1777, having cost £975.

Further widening

At some stage the Cut was further widened from 55 feet to its present width of 75 feet. When this happened is unclear. It has been suggested it happened during the Beardmore modifications of the 1850s, but this seems improbable. Widening was not called for by Rendel's plans, nor is it mentioned by Beardmore himself. Possibly it happened during the construction of the Commercial Road. An 1809 print seems to show widening excavations alongside the Cut.

Hydraulics

Although the newly constructed Limehouse Cut could save vessels time navigating down Bow Creek and around the Isle of Dogs, its performance was suboptimal. Unusually, it was a tidal canal. It could be short of water and liable to shoal.
At the northern end of the Cut was a conflict with a property called Four Mills, which was in fact a group of five tidal water wheels. Nathaniel Beardmore, the Lee trustees' engineer, described the conflict as it was in early Victorian times: At an 1850 inquiry by William Cubitt it was explained that because the Cut was unnavigable for four or five days at neap tides, barges had no way out to the Thames except via Bow Creek. Hence the tolls were lost.
The Cut had no locks except at either end—despite the fall in the land, which was 17½ feet. The shallowest point was therefore critical. "Limehouse Cut had always occasioned a great deal of trouble", added Beardmore, "on account of the water falling short, and of the slipping of the moving sands and gravel, which lay where the London clay was denuded". No systematic attempt to improve the navigation was made until the Victorian era.

The Limehouse basin—first of three

Near its Limehouse end the Cut was widened to form a basin with an island in it. This was the first Limehouse basin, made 25 years before the better known Regent's Canal Dock. The reason for this is described below, see "The Island in the Cut and its mills".

Victorian modifications

Railway competition

By 1843 a railway had been built from Stratford to Hertford: it became the Eastern Counties Railway. The line ran beside the River Lee and threatened its carrying trade.

Closing the Four Mills

As an essential first step in 1847 the trustees of the Lee Navigation bought out the troublesome Four Mills and gradually stopped them using water power.

James Rendel's scheme

In 1849 James Rendel was asked to devise a scheme to improve the infrastructure, which was dilapidated. He reported that "if is to compete successfully with Railways, it should be made an efficient branch of the Thames, viz. navigable by the largest class of barges there employed". He proposed, besides numerous improvements on the river proper, the reconstruction of Bromley Lock; deepening the Limehouse Cut; forming a towing path under Britannia Bridge ; and the construction of a new outfall lock into the Thames, with cills 19 feet below Trinity High Water, and with tide gates.

Financing and politics

The engineering of the Limehouse Cut was affected by political disputes upstream. The Lee had multiple uses. It was a highway for traders. It supplied London with drinking water. It powered grain mills. It was a sewer for towns and factories. There was no Conservancy Board to manage these clashing interests, just the trustees responsible for its navigation.
The navigation of the River Lee was governed by a board of 65–120 unpaid trustees, typically country magistrates. The most influential was James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury, who became chairman in 1851. A powerful nobleman with a deep knowledge of parliamentary procedure, his biographer has described him as an eighteenth century aristocrat in a nineteenth century world. Of the few trustees who used to turn up to meetings, only one was a trader who owned barges.
Rendel's estimate for his scheme was £230,000—about £30 million today—yet the Trust's revenue was small. However, John Marchant, clerk to the trustees, had hit on the idea of borrowing the capital and paying off the loans by selling more water to the London water companies. This was essential to the scheme's success, Hertford's MP William Cowper told Parliament.
The scheme was controversial. It was opposed by many river traders who complained the benefits were not worth the money and the Trust would incur large debts: meaning higher tolls. Its promoters were certain it would pay for itself. At an unusually large meeting of the Trust at Ware, the scheme was carried by 27–25 votes. A Bill was put before Parliament to authorise it and, despite opposition from radical politician John Bright—who suspected an ulterior motive—became law on 1 August 1850.
The pessimists proved correct. While the London water companies were interested in buying the water, and had said so, they had not tied themselves to a price; and soon showed who had the stronger bargaining power. First, the New River Company struck a deal with the town of Hertford to get water from the pure and copious River Mimram—an upstream tributary, outside the Lee Trust's jurisdiction. Then they and the East London Waterworks applied for Acts of Parliament of their own, by which they would get the River Lee's water. There was litigation; the Trust ran into cashflow problems; and the eventual compromise was that the Companies got the whole of the River Lee's water—apart from that required for navigation—for comparatively small amounts.
The upshot was that though there were valuable improvements, the Trust incurred a large debt without any obvious means to pay it off. Though they had increased the tolls, they ran out of funds. Sacrifices had to be made, and were made on the Limehouse Cut.

Beardmore's implementation

Rendel's plans were implemented by his former pupil Nathaniel Beardmore. The first tranche of work was supposed to comprise the tidal portion, hence the Limehouse Cut. However funds ran out, work stopped in 1853, and some of Rendel's plans had to be curtailed. When more funding became available in 1855 it had to be devoted to non-tidal parts of the Lee.
Some changes were made before funds ran out, with the following effect. The governing level in Limehouse Cut was increased: the water was not allowed to fall 2 feet below Trinity High Water mark. The Cut under the Commercial Road bridge was made wider and given a towpath. Larger barges could now be handled:

Barge Dimension	With old Lee Navigation	With improved Lee Navigation
Draught	4 feet	6 feet
Length	85 feet	110 feet
Beam	13 feet	19 feet

These and other improvements were said to increase the tonnage on the Lee Navigation by 25%, despite competition from the Eastern Counties Railway.