The re-emergence of the Stroudwater canal

The weather today was so good, being relatively warm, windless and very sunny, that I had to go for a walk. To save time I drove to the west of Stroud following the line of the river and parked at St Cyr’s church near to Stonehouse. The church is old but had the late 18th century canal routed right beside it and its large churchyard.

I walked through the churchyard to access the towpath on the north side of the canal which leads to the old turning basin which was nicknamed The Ocean. Until two years ago the old canal which had been abandoned in the 1930s had lain forlorn and gradually infilled with mud and thick vegetation. The first stage of the canal’s regeneration, which has progressed enormously in recent years, finished at The Ocean where the canal had been filled in by a re-construction of a railway bridge carrying the main west coast line, probably in the 1950s. 

Now the second stage of the regeneration has been funded, the railway bridge has been replaced once again to allow the canal to flow once again. Now Stroud and further east can be connected to the national waterway network when the next major works begin quite soon to take the canal under the M5 motorway. Hopefully this will be achieved within another two years. A lot of other work must be done to bring the canal back into serviceable condition for boating but that is underway.

Today I walked for the first time along the replaced towpath under the new railway bridge and saw the start of the dredging work that has already been done. Boats can now proceed about a mile and a half further west towards the ‘missing mile’ near the M5.

I chatted to several people I met  and had hoped to see a resident kingfisher, but I think the now much busier canal-side has probably encouraged the kingfishers to hunt on the nearby river, running in parallel at a lower level on the flood plain, during the busy ‘human’ day.

I took this picture just after a fast train from Bristol to Birmingham had crossed the bridge and a boat with volunteers working on the canal had passed underneath it. The moored pink boats are some that are used for dredging and repairing the banks. I rather like this halfway stage between the old abandoned canal’s aftermath and the start of a refreshed waterway You can just see the church tower in the distance behind the new bridge.

The 'Extra' is a view back towards Stroud from a swingbridge between The Ocean and St Cyr's church.