The North Walsham and Dilham Canal is a waterway in the English county of Norfolk. It was authorised by Parliament in 1812, but work on the construction of a canal which ran parallel to a branch of the River Ant did not start until 1825. It included six locks, which were sized to accommodate wherries, and was officially opened in August 1826. It was long and ran from two bone mills at Antingham to a junction with the River Ant at Smallburgh. It carried offal for the bone mills and agricultural products, as it proved cheaper to land coal on the beach at Mundesley and cart it overland than to use the canal.
The venture was not a commercial success, and it was sold to various millers, who owned watermills along its length. The section above Swafield locks was abandoned in 1893, and from 1922 it was owned by the North Walsham Canal Company, set up by Edward Cubitt and George Walker, who were mill owners. The last commercial use of the canal was in 1934, and it avoided nationalisation in 1948. With the dawning of the leisure age, the canal was seen as an easy one to restore, but work to do so did not start until 2000, when the East Anglian Waterways Association (EAWA) started to run working parties for volunteers. In 2008 the North Walsham and Dilham Canal Trust was formed, and jointly run working parties with the EAWA. In 2009, part of the canal was sold to the Old Canal Company, who have worked to restore two locks and the pounds in between, in order to run Bacton Wood Mill as a watermill. Rewatering was interrupted by the Environment Agency issuing a stop notice in April 2012, but negotiations continue.
The canal served six mills, located along its banks, including the two bone mills at Antingham. There has been a mill at Bacton Wood since the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, and much of the present building dates from 1747. It was the home of Sir William Cubitt, who invented the self-regulating windmill sail and the prison treadmill. Since the millpond at Ebridge has been cleared and rewatered by volunteers, there has been a significant increase in the types of wildlife observed at the location. The area through which the canal flows is at risk of flooding, and this is mitigated by the actions of the Broads Internal Drainage Board, who manage drains and ditches in the upper regions, and have two pumping stations which pump water into the canal at its lower end.
History Planning and construction
Before 1810, the River Ant was navigable to the Norfolk village of Dilham. That year it was proposed that navigation could be extended north of the village. In 1811, plans were drawn up by William Youard and John Millington; one by Millington formed the basis of a bill presented to Parliament in early 1812. It was opposed by the inhabitants of Worstead and Dilham, who feared that their businesses would collapse if boats could reach the nearby town of North Walsham, but that year the (52 Geo. 3. c. lxix), dated 5 May 1812, created the Company of Proprietors of the North Walsham and Dilham Canal Navigation. They had powers to raise £30,000 by the issuing of shares, and a further £10,000 if required, either from shares or by mortgage.
Work on the construction of the canal did not start until 1825, with some of the delays caused by a claim for damages made by Issac Harris Lewis, who owned his own staithe (wharf) at Dilham and felt that the new canal would damage his trade. In April 1825 he was awarded £1,500 in compensation. Work began in the same month, employing 100 men from Bedfordshire.
The canal was designed by John Millington, who acted as engineer for the project. The construction was carried out by Thomas Hughes, who had previously worked in Scotland on the Caledonian Canal, the Dingwall Canal and the Union Canal. The North Walsham and Dilham Canal was his only canal-building venture. Later in Millington's career he went to the United States, where he wrote ''Elements of Civil Engineering'' which includes much information on canal building.
Although the line of the canal ran broadly parallel to a branch of the River Ant, it did not occupy the river bed, and so was technically a canal and not a river navigation. The route required six locks to raise the level by along its length. The locks were sized for wherries, which were .
Operation Vessels were able to reach Cubitt's Mill by 14 June 1826 and the canal was formally opened on 29 August 1826. The water supply for the canal came from the ponds at Antingham, but the link into the ponds could only be used by small lighters. It was not deep enough for wherries, which had to use a basin next to Antingham Mills. Tolls on all cargoes using the canal were collected at Tonnage Bridge, where there was once a wharf and a cottage.
The main use of the canal was to carry offal to the two Antingham Bone Mills, although other cargoes were carried such as manure, flour, grain, coal and farm produce. A profitable trade in coal did not develop, as the tolls were too high and it was cheaper for coal to be brought down the coast from the north east and landed on the beach near Bacton or Mundesley, from where it would reach North Walsham by cart. Later, the railways handled most of the coal traffic. Most of the vessels using the canal were wherries, which had a draught of and were capable of carrying between 18 and 20 tons. Some wherries were of a slip-keel design, where the keel of a loaded boat could be unbolted from the bottom of the vessel while it was afloat, in order to negotiate the shallow waters of the canal. Once unloaded, the keel would be replaced, to allow more sail to be used. While detached, the keels were towed behind the boat, to prevent them from drying out and warping. A smaller 12-ton wherry regularly carried vegetables between Antingham and Great Yarmouth and was known as the cabbage wherry.
Decline
The canal was not a financial success, and in 1866 the company obtained an act of Parliament, the (29 & 30 Vict. c. cxxi) that would allow them to sell the canal providing three-quarters of the shareholders agreed. In 1885, they decided to use this power, as Edward Press, the owner of Bacton Wood mill, and a trader with a fleet of wherries, wished to purchase it. The sale was completed on 16 March 1886, on the understanding that the £600 price would be distributed to the shareholders. Holders of 446 of the original 586 shares were traced, but after paying money on 55 shares, James Turner, the London solicitor handling the sale, absconded with the rest of the fund. The proprietors felt morally bound to refund the money themselves, but did not do so immediately, as none of the shareholders made a claim. Eventually in 1896, five of them, including Press who had bought the canal, contributed £110 17s 7d (£110.88) to a fund which was distributed as a dividend to those who had not been paid.
In 1887, Walter Rye was appointed as the clerk and noticed a number of irregularities in the way the company ran. Edward Press was the general manager, although he was disqualified from the post as he profited from the canal, and there was no treasurer, despite the fact that the North Walsham and Dilham Canal Navigation Act 1812 required one to be appointed. There was also no way to wind up the company. Rye's concerns were ignored, as nothing changed, and Press continued to run the canal. In 1893, the upper from Swafield lock to Antingham were abandoned, but traffic figures for 1898 show that 6,386 tons arrived at wharves on the canal, 5,000 tons were loaded for shipping, and 400 tons were carried within the confines of the canal. Trade declined steadily but Press was an early advocate of canal tourism. He published an advert in the 1888 volume, Handbook of the Rivers and Broads of Norfolk and Suffolk, which described the various wherries which could be hired. The boats came with two crew members, and contained a ladies cabin and a gentlemen's cabin, which could also be used as a day saloon. Press died on 2 July 1906, and a director of the General Estates Company called Mr Percy bought the canal at an auction held on 11 September 1907, for £2,550.
Heavy flooding in August 1912 washed away several staithes, and resulted in a breach of the canal bank above Bacton Wood Lock. The canal was bought by the mill owners Edward Cubitt and George Walker in 1921, who expected that a new drainage board was to be created, which would take over the running of the canal. This did not occur, however, and so the two millers set up the North Walsham Canal Co Ltd, which bought the canal in January 1922 for the £1,500 they had paid. Cubitt and Walker dredged the canal from Wayford Bridge up to Bacton Wood in 1927, but at the same time dewatered the upper section above Swafield Lock. Decline continued and the wherry "Ella" made the final trading journey on the canal from Bacton Staithe in 1934. Because the canal was moribund, it was not nationalized in 1948 when most other British canals were, and continued to belong to the North Walsham Canal Company. The company sold around of the dry canal bed above Swafield Locks in 1948, and it reverted to farmland. In order to protect the water supply to Ebridge mill, which was still water powered, the Ebridge to Bacton Wood section was dredged in 1957. Three years later, a culvert near Royston bridge became blocked. Rather than repair it, the culvert was demolished, and the water from the canal was diverted, to rejoin the waterway below Bacton Wood lock.
Restoration
Robert Aickman and Teddy Edwards from the newly formed Inland Waterways Association visited the canal in 1953. In 1972, David Hutchings, who led the restoration of the Stratford Canal, stated that the North Walsham and Dilham should be one of the easiest to restore, since none of the locks had been demolished, and none of the bridges had been lowered. However, no immediate action was taken, and the channel gradually silted up. Tonnage Bridge collapsed in 1980, and a local landowner wanted to rebuild it. The newly formed Broads Authority was supportive, and in order to allow the work to proceed, the landowner bought the of canal below Honing Lock in October 1981. The purchase price was £2,050, and the bridge was rebuilt in traditional style, partly funded by a grant from the Broads Authority.
In 1993, the East Anglian Waterways Association (EAWA) decided to step up its efforts to get the waterway restored, and an engineering study of the locks and channel restoration was carried out, which found the concept to be feasible. They then commissioned and paid for a full environmental study, and North Norfolk District Council voiced their support in October 1999, although they did not envisage powered boats using the waterway. The EAWA organised working parties for volunteers from December 2000, and worked on clearing vegetation and repairs at Briggate, Bacton Wood and Honing. In 2008 the North Walsham and Dilham Canal Trust was formed. The aims of the Trust are to "protect, conserve and improve the route of the canal and its branches for the benefit of the community and the environment." It does this by working with the owners of the canal, local land owners, the East Anglian Waterways Association, local authorities and other interested parties. Since its formation, working parties have been joint ventures between the Trust and the EAWA.