Odiham Basingstoke Canal

History

Hampshire County Council's Odiham walk is a figure of eight on the Basingstoke Canal between Odiham Wharf and North Warnborough. It takes the towpath west to Greywell Tunnel, passing King John's Castle, and uses footpaths and a short stretch of road for the rest. The canal was authorised by Act of Parliament in 1778, held up for nine years by the cost of the War of American Independence, and completed in 1794, surveyed by William Jessop and built by the contractor John Pinkerton. The Basingstoke Canal Society says a loop round Greywell Hill, which the owner of nearby Tylney Hall opposed, was dropped in favour of the 1,230-yard Greywell Tunnel.

The last boat reached Basingstoke in 1910. By the mid-1960s the channel was silted up and much of the towpath overgrown, and 300 metres of the tunnel roof had fallen in in 1932, so the navigable canal now ends just east of Greywell Tunnel. The Surrey and Hampshire Canal Society, formed in 1966, campaigned for public ownership; Hampshire County Council bought its 15-mile length late in 1973, and the first working party that year cleared the towpath, which could then be walked from Greywell to Barley Mow Bridge. The society's dredger Perseverance began work at Odiham in 1975, and the canal was formally reopened on 10 May 1991. The Basingstoke Canal Authority, set up in 1990 as managing agent for the two county councils that own the canal, manages the towpath.