Bridgwater and Taunton Canal

History

The walk follows the towpath of the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal, which runs for a little over 14 miles round the foot of the Quantock Hills. It was one of very few sections built of a grandiose but doomed plan to link the Bristol and English Channels, and it opened in 1827. At first it met the River Parrett at Huntworth; in 1841 it was extended round Bridgwater to new docks below the town bridge, and the access at Huntworth was closed. Its main cargoes were coal and iron from South Wales, with agricultural goods on the boats' return journeys. The Bristol & Exeter Railway bought the canal in 1866 and built a branch to the docks.

Commercial carrying had all but ended by the turn of the 20th century; the Inland Waterways Association dates the last commercial traffic to 1907. The canal then served as a water supply, and in the Second World War its swing bridges were secured in position, so that it could take nothing larger than a canoe or dinghy. The Association says restoration began in the mid 1970s and the canal reopened fully in 1994 after a long campaign by the Association; the Canal & River Trust credits Somerset County Council and British Waterways with the restoration. The Trust now maintains the canal, and its towpath carries the Somerset Space Walk, a scale model of the solar system with the sun at Maunsel Lock and the planets set along the towpath for six miles in each direction.