Canal walk is all the talk (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Canal walk is all the talk

9:13am Thursday 25th February 2010 in

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THE last five miles of Basingstoke Canal may never be restored, but a footpath marking its route could become a reality .

Surrey & Hampshire Canal Society is working with Hampshire County Council to provide a footpath linking the centre of Basingstoke to Greywell. Originally 37 miles long, construction work on the canal began in 1778 and took six years to complete.

From Basingstoke Wharf, which is now the site of the bus station at Festival Place, it linked the small market town to the Pool of London, via a three-mile link along the Wey Navigation, in Surrey to the River Thames. Construction of the canal was quite an undertaking. It involved building 69 bridges, 29 locks and five lock houses, four wharves and three warehouses, as well as a 1,230-yard long tunnel at Greywell, and the 50-yard Little Tunnel Bridge at Mapledurwell. It proved to be a commercial failure and became derelict on more than one occasion.

But 32 miles of the canal survive, between Greywell and Woodham, in Surrey, and are considered a beautiful and important monument to our agricultural and industrial past, as well as a haven for wildlife.

If it were not for the Surrey & Hampshire Canal Society, none of the canal would exist today. Set up in 1966, the society began its campaign for the restoration of the, then, derelict canal.

With much of the canal bed at Mapledurwell having been filled in and the M3 crossing its route at Hatch, near Old Basing, the idea of restoring the last five miles seems unfeasible.

The problems are compounded by the fact the tunnel at Greywell is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), because bats have been found hibernating there.

The canal society’s chairman, Peter Redway, is upbeat about the footpath project. He said: “It was always our ambition to get the canal restored to Basingstoke. We would like to mark the last five miles by creating a footpath which, we think, people will want to use.

“They’ll be able to see where the canal used to go and it will help preserve some of the features which are left, which include some of the old bridges. In some places, the canal route has disappeared and we’ll have to find diversions.”

Having just been made a vice-president of the society, Basingstoke MP, Maria Miller, is lending her support for the project.

Mrs Miller said: “I’m absolutely delighted to be asked to be involved in the Surrey and Hampshire Canal Society, because the canal is part of the history of the town.

“And I’m very interested in local history, and how community is developed from historical routes.

“To get a path on the last five miles of the canal is an exciting project which, I think, will add to people’s understanding of the history of Basingstoke.”

Mrs Miller learned more about the Basingstoke Canal when she paid a visit to The Willis Museum, which has a small exhibition to mark the centenary of the last recorded boat to have travelled the waterway’s entire length, arriving at Basingstoke Wharf on February 18, 1910.

The society’s press officer, Roger Cansdale, said making that journey was bargeman and boat builder Alexander Harmsworth. Mr Cansdale said: “That was the last boat as far as we know which actually arrived in Basingstoke. It was carrying sand from Mytchett, to be delivered to Wallis and Steevens.

“The engineering firm used the sand from Mytchett for their cast iron mouldings.

“There is now no trace of Basingstoke Wharf, as in 1936 it was sold and filled in and the site is now the bus station at Festival Place.”