Exeter Ship Canal

History

The walk follows the towpath of the Exeter Ship Canal, which runs five miles from the Canal Basin at Exeter to Turf Lock on the tidal River Exe. In the late 1200s local landowners built the first of two weirs across the river to power fulling mills, and the weirs prevented navigation. The city's traders then employed John Trew of Glamorgan to build a canal to bypass them. It was 1 and three-quarter miles long, had what the Inland Waterways Association describes as the first pound locks in Britain, and joined the river just below Exeter Quay; a new weir was built on the river to hold the water level and feed the canal. It opened in 1566, was not a great success, and was later improved and lengthened.

In the 1820s the engineer James Green lengthened and improved it again, with the present entrance at Turf Lock completed in 1827, and the Canal Basin at Exeter was built in 1830. The last commercial traffic on the canal was sewage sludge, carried in 1998. Exeter City Council owns the canal, as the city financed the original project, and is its navigation authority; the towpath forms part of the Riverside Valley Park, which the council manages.