Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation
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The Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation is the canalisation of the Rivers Chelmer and Blackwater in Essex, in the east of England.
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[edit] Geographical Information
It runs for 22 km (13.6 miles) from Springfield Basin in Chelmsford to the sea lock at Heybridge Basin near Maldon. It has 13 locks (including a flood lock) it drops 23 metres (75.4 feet) from the basin to the sea.
[edit] History of the Navigation
An Act of Parliament was passed in 1793 authorising the construction of the navigation and work began in October of that year, with John Rennie as Chief Engineer but with Richard Coates in charge in practice as Resident Engineer. The first section from Heybridge basin to Little Baddow opened in the spring of 1796 and the navigation was opened throughout on 3 June 1797.
The first inland gas works in Britain was built in Chelmsford using coal brought up the navigation. At its peak in the mid 19th Century the canal was carrying over 60,000 tons of cargo per year.
This slowly declined until the last load of timber was delivered to Browns Yard (now Travis Perkins) on Springfield Basin in 1972. Although commercial traffic ceased in 1972, the navigation has since survived solely on leisure traffic and by selling the wood from the willows that grow on the banks for making cricket bats.
The navigation is unusual in that it was not nationalised, along with most other waterways in the UK, in 1948 and is still under the control of the original Company of Proprietors of the Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation Ltd.
In 2003 the aforementioned went into administration and in November 2005 The Inland Waterways Association (IWA) signed a maintenance and operating agreement with the Administrator to take over responsibility for the running of the navigation through a wholly owned subsidiary Essex Waterways Ltd.
