Chichester Canal towpath

History

The Chichester Canal is the Birdham to Chichester part of the Portsmouth and Arundel Canal, which an Act of Parliament authorised in 1817 as a link from the River Arun to Chichester Harbour and, through dredged channels, to Portsmouth, part of a through route to London. John Rennie was surveyor and engineer for the Chichester section. A 1.5-mile branch from Hunston to a basin in Chichester, and the main-line length between Salterns and Hunston, were built to a larger size with iron swing bridges so that coastal ships of over 100 tons could reach the city, and the Birdham to Chichester section opened on 9 April 1822. The through route was not a success, but the ship canal brought in building materials and coal and took away manure, and it carried trade until 1906. Chichester Corporation took it over in 1892 and abandoned it in 1928, and West Sussex County Council bought it in 1957.

After its abandonment the canal was leased to a local angling club and gradually silted up, and two main road bridges were replaced by culverts. In the late 1970s the Portsmouth & Arundel Canal Society was formed to restore it, taking over the lease from the anglers in 1984; it became the Chichester Canal Society and is now the Chichester Ship Canal Trust, a charity run by volunteers, which maintains the canal under a lease from West Sussex County Council. The towpath is a gentle four-mile walk from the Canal Basin in Chichester to Chichester Marina, and the view back from Hunston Bridge, with the cathedral and the Downs behind the canal, is the one J. M. W. Turner painted in 1828.