Nottingham Canal
The Nottingham Canal is a canal in the English counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. As built, it comprised a long main line between the River Trent just downstream of Trent Bridge in Nottingham and Langley Mill in Derbyshire. At the same time as the main line of the canal was built by its proprietors, the separate Trent Navigation Company built the Beeston Cut, from the main line at Lenton in Nottingham to rejoin the River Trent upstream of Nottingham, thus bypassing the difficult section of navigation through Trent Bridge. The section of the main line between Trent Bridge and Lenton, together with the Beeston Cut, is still in use, forming part of the navigation of the River Trent and sometimes referred to as the Nottingham & Beeston Canal. The remainder of the main line of the canal beyond Lenton has been abandoned and partially filled.
The canal leaves the River Trent by Meadow Lane Lock and runs close to Nottingham city centre, serving a number of wharves in the city. It rises through Castle Lock, overlooked by Nottingham Castle, and then continues to Lenton. From here the Beeston Cut continues to Beeston Lock, where it reenters the River Trent. Also from Lenton, the now disused main line rose through a further 17 locks to reach a long upper pound. At its upper end, a stop lock connected it to the Great Northern Basin, which provided access to the Erewash Canal and the Cromford Canal.
Construction began in 1792 and was completed in 1796, overrunning its budget by 77%. Traffic increased slowly, but from 1804 was sufficient to enable dividends to be paid to the shareholders. Competition from the railways began in the early 1840s, and rather than face continual decline, the company sold the canal to the Ambergate, Nottingham, Boston and Eastern Junction Railway. A series of amalgamations took place, and by 1923, the canal was owned by the Great Northern Railway. The GNR leased the section from Lenton to the Trent to the Trent Navigation Company in 1936, and abandoned the remainder of the main line the following year. The Trent Navigation Company bought their section outright in 1946, whilst Nottingham City Council bought the section from Lenton to the city limits and began filling it in from 1955. Broxtowe Borough Council subsequently bought of the upper section with the intention of retaining it as a public amenity. There was a brief attempt at re-opening the upper section for navigation, but subsequent road construction and the destruction of the canal bed by open-cast mining have made that impractical.
The main line of the canal from Trent Bridge to Lenton, together with the Beeston Cut from Lenton back to the Trent is still used by boats, as well as walkers on the towpath. In central Nottingham, the Castle Wharf area has been redeveloped with waterside bars and restaurants. On some parts of the abandoned section of the canal, the towpath is used by walkers, cyclists and naturalists, with some parts used for angling and horse riding. Car parks have been provided, and Nottinghamshire County Council have assisted with making the towpath accessible to the disabled.
History
The idea for the canal first arose in 1790. Prior to that time, supplies of coal for Nottingham travelled down the Erewash Canal and along the River Trent. When the Cromford Canal was authorised in July 1789, there was concern that collieries which were located near it would thrive, at the expense of those nearer to Nottingham. There were also worries that the Erewash company would effectively have a monopoly on coal supplies, and might use this to increase prices. Convinced that these issues were not just idle speculation, Thomas Oldknow, John Morris and Henry Green lobbied for a public meeting. The meeting, held at the Guildhall on 26 October 1790, debated the idea of a canal running directly from the Cromford Canal to the Trent, joining it below Trent Bridge. Those present approved a plan, and formed a committee, which included two men who were also connected to the company building the Cromford Canal.The committee called upon the services of the surveyor William Jessop, who had experience with the successful Cromford Canal. A possible route had already been suggested by Lord Middleton, owner of Wollaton Hall and coal mines at Wollaton, but Jessop discounted this, on the basis that it would involve lengths of deep cutting and some tunnelling. Jessop then became ill, and suggested that the survey could be carried out by James Green, who worked for Lord Middleton at Wollaton. The committee decide to wait for Jessop to recover, but after six months, they relented and asked Green to survey the route in June 1791, as well as a branch from Lenton across Beeston Meadows to join the Trent at Beeston. This would allow traffic on the river to bypass Trent Bridge, where passage was difficult, and to pass the wharves in Nottingham. When the Erewash Canal company learnt of the proposal, they approached Nottingham Corporation about them building a route from Beeston through Nottingham to the Trent, but at this stage the Corporation declined.
Green's work was overseen by Jessop, and in September 1791, Jessop had produced a route and an estimated cost. The first route had passed to the west of Wollaton Park, but Lord Middleton had insisted that unless it ran on the eastern side of his park, he would oppose the whole plan. Although this route was more expensive to construct, the eastern route was chosen. The committee accepted Jessop's estimate at the September meeting, and a public meeting was arranged on 25 October, where there was enthusiastic support for the new canal. They agreed to limit dividends to ten per-cent, and negotiations with the Cromford Canal company resulted in an agreement for the Nottingham company to build reservoirs which would feed into the Cromford Canal, so that water could pass into the Nottingham Canal at its northern end.
It was the time of Canal Mania, and the initial offers for shares were over-subscribed. Amidst discontent from land owners, dividends were further limited to eight per-cent, the tolls on coal were reduced, and £20,000 of shares were set aside for purchase by the land owners. The bill was opposed by the Erewash Canal and the Trent and Mersey Canal, who were promoting a plan for the Trent Canal from Derwent Mouth, where the Trent and Mersey ended, via the Erewash, Beeston and Nottingham to the Trent below Nottingham. The Trent Navigation also argued against it, because they wanted to build the Beeston Cut themselves. Complicated negotiations followed, in which the Beeston Cut was dropped from the bill, on the understanding that the Trent Navigation would then apply to build it, and the Trent Canal bill was withdrawn when the Trent Navigation pledged to pursue a bill to improve the river. When an act of Parliament, the Nottingham Canal Act 1792, was granted in May that year there were great celebrations in Nottingham.
Construction
The created the Nottingham Canal Company, who could raise £50,000 by issuing shares of £100, and could raise another £25,000 by obtaining a mortgage or by assigning the tolls, if required. The company were to build reservoirs which would feed into the Cromford Canal, in compensation for the water taken from that canal at Langley Mill. Jessop's original estimate for the cost of the works, excluding the Beeston Cut, had been £45,185. Jessop was appointed engineer, with Green as superintendent, overseeing the day-to-day operation of the project. Benjamin Outram was given the task of calculating the water supply. He looked at the volumes of water flowing into the Erewash Canal and supplying mills on the Erewash, such as Langley Mill, and also at flows in the steams feeding the reservoirs. Measurements were taken in the summer of 1793, when flows were considerably less than in the winter, so that the amount of water that could be taken could be computed more accurately. Reservoirs were built at Greasley, which was sometimes called Moorgreen reservoir, and at Codnor Park, Butterley. Both fed water into the Cromford Canal, the first by a long feeder that entered the canal just above Langley Mill, while the second was a compensation reservoir, and was next to the canal, with only the towpath between them.Work began on 30 July 1792. The River Leen ran along the southern edge of the city between Lenton in the west and Leen Bridge, a series of flood arches to the east. The river bed was enlarged to form the canal, while the river was diverted into a new covered channel further to the north. The flood arches were replaced by a new bridge, and the canal turned sharply to the south, to join the Trent. The proprietors wanted a basin where the canal joined the river, with a lock above that, but Jessop argued that such an arrangement would lead to the entrance becoming blocked with sand. Building the lock close to the river would ensure that the sand was flushed away whenever the lock was emptied. The town section was officially opened on 30 July 1793, giving access to wharves, although there was still much work to be completed. To the east of Leen Bridge, a weir was constructed, to feed water into the Brewery Arm, an enlargement of the river channel. At its far end, another weir overflowed back into the new course of the Leen. A second arm, the Poplar Arm, was made using water channels on Eastcroft Meadow, and joined the Brewery Arm.
The cost of building the canal onwards from Lenton exceeded Jessop's estimate, and by September 1794, this had been paid for by calling £140 on each of the £100 shares. Further calls were made, and had reached £150 in March 1795. In February 1795, sections of the new cut were damaged, when seven weeks of severe frost were followed by a rapid thaw which caused flooding. The proprietors wrote to Jessop to express their dissatisfaction with "the erroneous construction of many works on the canal and the very large expense incurred", but Jessop was already involved in much bigger projects. On 1 March 1796, the first boat reached Nottingham from the south, travelling along the completed Beeston Cut, which joined the Nottingham Canal at Lenton, and on 26 April, the whole length of the canal was open. The work had cost £80,000, and most of the proprietors resigned soon afterwards. The share issue was topped up by borrowing £5,000 as a mortgage, which had been repaid by 1804.