Buckingham Arm
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The Buckingham Arm is a canal that once ran from Cosgrove, Northamptonshire to Buckingham (in England). It was built as an arm of the Grand Junction Canal, in two separate phases, opening in 1800 and 1801. It was disused from 1932, but was not finally abandoned until 1964. It is now the subject of a restoration project.
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[edit] History
On 30 April 1793, the Grand Junction Canal was authorised by an Act of Parliament, and the act made provision for an arm from the main line to Old Stratford, ending at the former Roman road of Watling Street, which was a major communications route. The continuation to Buckingham was surveyed in 1793, and included in another Act of Parliament, passed in September 1794, which authorised the construction of the Aylesbury, Buckingham and Wendover arms.[1]
The initial section to Old Stratford was to be constructed as a broad canal, capable of use by boats which were 14 ft (4.3m) wide. The Grand Junction Canal had to cross the River Ouse at Wolverton, and the original plan was to construct a crossing on the level, with a flight of locks down one side of the valley and another up the other side. The Old Stratford branch would have had a junction with the main line at the lowest level, and followed the course of the River Ouse valley. From Old Stratford, the canal was to continue as a 7 ft (2.1m) narrow canal, which would have joined the river at Passenham, effectively becoming a navigation, as a number of locks would have been needed along the course of the river. The plans were changed when it was decided to construct a high level crossing of the River Ouse, ruling out the possibility of a junction, and so the arm left the main line just above Cosgrove lock, following the north side of the Ouse valley, and resulted in a canal which was on one level for most of its length, with just two locks as it approached Buckingham.[1]
The Grand Junction Canal, which included the two flights of locks to cross the River Ouse, opened in August 1800, and the Stratford arm followed six weeks later, in September. The Buckingham branch progressed quickly and was built in 8 months. A formal opening occurred on 1 May 1801, with celebrations as Buckingham. The canal was supplied with water by a feeder from the River Ouse in Buckingham.[1] The lock flights on the main line were replaced by two embankments and an aqueduct in 1805, but there were problems with the aqueduct, and it was replaced with an iron trough in 1811.[2]
By the 1850s, the canal was suffering from competition from the railways, and the water supply from the river contained much silt, which was deposited in the canal, making navigation difficult. Buckingham Corporation also used the canal as a disposal point for sewage, which added to the problems. Trade continued to reduce, with the Grand Junction company resorting to legal action to prevent the dumping of sewage into the canal in 1890, but Bradshaw's Guide of 1904 lists the upper section as "barely navigable".[1]
In 1919, a section of the canal near Mount Mill Farm was replaced by a concrete trough, in an attempt to reduce leakage. The last recorded commercial traffic was a delivery of chemicals to Leckhamstead in 1932. The arm was blocked by the first bridge in 1944, as a precaution against further leakage, and the temporary dam was never removed. The Buckingham branch was formally abandoned in 1964[1], but the Old Stratford branch was not. Despite this, the Old Stratford branch was severed by the new route of the A5 road, constructed in 1975/6, and Old Stratford basin was sold in 1991. The route of the Buckingham branch was severed by the construction of the A422 Old Stratford Bypass in 1989/90.
[edit] Today
The arm is closed, with the exception of a short stretch (about 100 metres) running westwards from the junction with the Grand Union Canal at Cosgrove. Beyond this point the canal can still be followed as a trench running through open fields as far as Old Stratford, where a housing estate has been built over the canal's route. Other remnants of the route are decipherable in the landscape as far as Buckingham.
There is a movement underway to have the canal reopened - a volunteer association has been carrying out vegetation clearance and photography. The group intends to initially reopen the stretch as far as the A5 near Old Stratford.
Buckinghamshire County Council have produced a leaflet entitled The Ouse Valley Walk, which describes a walk from Buckingham to Milton Keynes, and covers most of the canal's route.[3]
