Kennet and Avon Canal - Bath To Devizes

Bath To Devizes

The restored Bath Bottom Lock marks the divergence of the River Avon and the canal. It is situated south of Pulteney Bridge. Just upstream of the Bottom Lock are a side pound and a pumping station that pumps water "upstream" of the locks, to replace that used each time a boat passes through. The next of the six Bath Locks is Bath Deep Lock, numbered 8/9 as two locks were combined when the canal was restored in 1976. The new chamber has a depth of 19 feet 5 inches (5.92 m), making it the UK's second-deepest canal lock. Just above the Deep Lock is another side pound as a reservoir for refilling the lock, followed by Wash House Lock. After a slightly longer pound is Abbey View Lock, beside which there is another pumping station and then, in quick succession, Pultney Lock and Bath Top Lock.

Above the Top Lock the canal passes through Sydney Gardens via two short tunnels and under two cast iron footbridges dating from 1800. Cleveland Tunnel is 173 feet (53 m) long and runs under Cleveland House, the former headquarters of the Kennet and Avon Canal Company and now a Grade II* listed building. A trap-door in the tunnel roof was used to pass paperwork between clerks above and bargees below. Many of the bridges over the canal are listed buildings.

On the eastern outskirts of Bath a toll bridge near the George Inn links Bathampton to Batheaston, on the north bank of the canal. When the A46 Bathampton by-pass was built, the 22-acre (8.9 ha) Bathampton Meadow was created to provide additional flood relief. The resultant wet meadows and oxbow lake have proved attractive to a number of migrants; wading birds such as dunlin, ringed and little ringed plover, and green and common sandpiper are frequent visitors in spring and autumn. Sand martin and kingfisher have been seen regularly by the lake, and other migrants have included yellow wagtail, whinchat and hobby. The canal turns south into a valley between Bathampton Wood and Bathford Hill which includes Brown's Folly a 99-acre (40 ha) biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest.

In the Avon Valley to the east of Bath the classic geographical example of a valley with all four forms of ground transport is found: road, rail, river, canal. The canal passes the remains of a loading dock, once used for Bath Stone from the quarries on Bathampton Down, which was carried down a straight track to the canal over the Dry Arch rock bridge (demolished in 1958 to allow double-decker buses to use the A36). Next, the canal passes the waterwheel-powered Claverton Pumping Station, which pumped water from the River Avon into the canal. The building was completed in 1810 and the pump was working by 1813.

On the eastern bank Warleigh Wood and Inwood are ash-wych elm and dry ash-maple woodland, which comes right down to the canal.

The canal then crosses over the river and the Wessex Main Line railway at the Dundas Aqueduct, past Conkwell Wood, before recrossing the river and railway at the Avoncliff Aqueduct. At the western end of the Dundas Aqueduct it is joined by the remains of the Somerset Coal Canal, a short stretch of which has been restored to create the Brassknocker Basin. Excavations of the old stop lock showed that it was originally a broad 14-foot (4 m) lock that at some point was narrowed to 7 feet (2 m) by moving the lock wall. The Somerset Coal Canal was built around 1800 from basins at Paulton and Timsbury, giving access to London from the Somerset Coalfield, which at its peak contained 80 collieries.

After the Avoncliff Aqueduct the canal passes through Barton Farm Country Park, past Gripwood Quarry and a 14th-century Grade II* listed tithe barn, 180 feet (55 m) long and 30 feet (9 m) wide, on its way into Bradford on Avon.

The first sod for the Kennet and Avon Canal was turned in Bradford on Avon in 1794, and soon there were wharves above and below Bradford Lock. Further east, an aqueduct carries the canal over the River Biss. There are locks at Semington and Seend, where water flows into the canal from the Summerham Brook, otherwise known as the Seend Feeder. In the village of Semington the Wilts & Berks Canal joined the canal, linking the Kennet and Avon to the River Thames at Abingdon. The North Wilts Canal merged with it to become a branch to the Thames and Severn Canal at Latton near Cricklade. The 52-mile (84 km) canal was opened in 1810, but abandoned in 1914 – a fate hastened by the collapse of Stanley Aqueduct in 1901. In 1977 the Wilts & Berks Canal Amenity Group was formed with the aim of fully restoring the canal to re-connect the Kennet and Avon to the upper reaches of the Thames.

Caen Hill Locks, at Devizes, provides an insight into the engineering needed to build and maintain the canal. The main flight of 16 locks, which take 5–6 hours to navigate in a boat, is part of a longer series of 29 locks built in three groups: seven at Foxhangers, sixteen at Caen Hill, and six at the town end of the flight. The total rise is 237 feet (72 m) in 2 miles (3.2 km) or a 1 in 30 gradient. The locks were the last part of the 87-mile (140 km) route of the canal to be completed. The steepness of the terrain meant that there was no space to use the normal arrangement of water pounds between the locks. As a result the 16 locks utilise unusually large side ponds to store the water needed for their operation. Because a large volume of water is needed a back pump was installed at Foxhangers in 1996, capable of returning 7 million imperial gallons (32 million litres) of water per day to the top of the flight, equivalent to one lockful every 11 minutes. While the locks were under construction in the early 19th century a tramroad provided a link between Foxhangers at the bottom of the flight and Devizes at the top, the remains of which can be seen in the towpath arches in the road bridges over the canal. From 1829 until 1843 the flight, which includes the narrowest lock on the canal, Lock 41, was illuminated by gas lights.

At the top of the flight is Devizes Wharf, home to the Kennet & Avon Canal Museum, which has a range of exhibits on the conception, design, usage, and eventual commercial decline of the Kennet and Avon Canal, as well as its subsequent restoration. It is operated by the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust, which has its headquarters and a shop within the Canal Centre. The Wharf Theatre is in an old warehouse on the same site. Devizes wharf is the starting point for the Devizes to Westminster International Canoe Marathon, which has been held every year since 1948.