Gloucester and Sharpness Canal

History

The walk follows the towpath of the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, a ship canal built to bypass the treacherous stretch of the River Severn below Gloucester. In 1793 Midlands industrialists, merchants and other leading people of Gloucester obtained an Act to build a canal from Gloucester to Berkeley, so that sea-going ships could reach Gloucester and raw materials and finished goods could move more cheaply to and from the Midlands. By the end of the decade only five miles, as far as Hardwick, had been built; the work was held up by disputes with landowners, dissatisfaction with the engineer Robert Mylne, wartime prices and trouble getting shareholders to pay their calls.

In 1816 it was agreed to route the canal less far inland and end it at Sharpness, a couple of miles short of Berkeley, with finance from the Exchequer Bill Loan Commissioners, whose engineering adviser was Thomas Telford. The canal opened in 1827, 86 feet 6 inches wide and 18 feet deep, the biggest canal in England.

A new entrance and dock opened at Sharpness in 1874, and the docks and canal stayed busy until the 1960s, with oil and petroleum an important new cargo. Sharpness docks are still active, though there is now little commercial traffic on the canal itself.