Buckingham Canal
The route known by canal restorers as the Buckingham Canal was actually built as two separate branches of the then Grand Junction Canal. The wide-beam Old Stratford Arm linked the main line at Cosgrove to Old Stratford, and then a few years later the narrow-beam Buckingham Arm extended the route from there along the upper Great Ouse valley to Buckingham.
The canal led an uneventful existence for several decades, but thanks to a silting problem and competition from other forms of transport it was in decline by the 1880s. The last goods were carried in the 1930s, a ‘temporary’ dam was installed at the entrance in 1944, and the closure became permanent with the abandonment of most of the route in 1964 and its subsequent obstruction by several new roads.
The Buckingham Canal Society hopes to reopen the route as far as the outskirts of Buckingham, and although there are some very major obstructions to be dealt with, the Society believes they are worth overcoming to re-create this quiet backwater through rural Buckinghamshire. Practical work to date has included repairs to two surviving bridges, channel clearance work, treee and scrub removal, and rebuilding an overspill - and the Society is looking forward to re-watering the first short section just outside Buckingham.
www.mkheritage.co.uk/bcs
