It is not proposed to do more than improve the existing navigations to the extent of enabling them to take barges with a carrying capacity of 700 tons, and sea-going steamers capable of carrying 300 to 400 tons, whereas at present they cannot carry boats of more than 80 tons. Such vessels could carry coal cargoes from the South Yorkshire collieries situated upon this waterway, and London or any other large consuming centre on the British shores. The existing waterways are, however, in the hands of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway Company, which, of course, will have to be consulted as to their acquisition. The accompanying diagram shows the route of the proposed improved navigation.
The Proposed Irish Sea and Birkenhead Ship Canal.
A company was established in 1888 for the purpose of cutting a canal, through the Wallasey Pool, from the Irish Sea to Birkenhead, The object of this undertaking is to improve the approach to the port of Liverpool, which is at present greatly prejudiced by the shifty channel, the numerous sandbanks on either side of the bar, and the risks and delays that are thereby entailed. The scheme is not a new one entirely. On the contrary, Telford, Nimmo, and Robert Stephenson, in 1838, reported upon a kindred project, and estimated its cost at 1,400,000l. The sum named, however, was too much for the promoters to raise, and a modified plan was submitted, calculated to cost about half the money. The Corporation of Liverpool, however, opposed the scheme, and privately bought up the land on either side of the Wallasey Pool, with a view to frustrate its accomplishment. Telford’s plans have, however, quite recently been revived, and it is now proposed to make a cut from an arm of the Wallasey Pool—which, running for about half a mile inland, has, notwithstanding the enormous extension of dock accommodation all around, been left in its natural condition—to the west end of the Leasowe embankment, near Dove Point, whence a tidal channel would be formed through the foreshore to the Rock Channel, the ancient entrance to the port of Liverpool. This tidal channel would be protected by a breakwater running from the Leasowe embankment to a point in the Rock Channel west of the Dove Spit. An outer breakwater would also run in an easterly and south-easterly direction for a distance of 5000 feet, sheltering the greater part of the Rock Channel, which is to be dredged for upwards of a mile to a depth of 30 feet below low-water mark. The scheme does not appear to be either difficult or costly, but as it is objected to by the Corporation of Liverpool and by the Mersey Harbour Board, it may not come to maturity. That it would, if carried out, be a great convenience to the many thousands who annually arrive at or depart from Liverpool for the United States and other countries, is sufficiently manifest.
The Canal Connection between London and Bristol.
The Wiltshire and Berkshire Canal was acquired by some capitalists towards the close of 1889, with a view to working it in competition with the Great Western Railway between London and Bristol. The canal in question leaves the Kennett and Avon Canal at Semington, a few miles on the Bristol side of Devizes, and proceeds thence through Melksham, Wootton Bassett, Swindon, and Challow to the Thames at Abingdon. Although the Kennett and Avon Canal, which joins the Thames at Reading, is 23 miles shorter between London and Avonmouth, it labours under the disadvantage of rising to a much greater height, and therefore requiring twenty-eight additional locks. It is also proposed to develop the Thames and Severn Canal, which is connected by a short branch from Swindon, through Cricklade, with the Wiltshire and Berkshire.
During the year 1888 attention was called to a project for the union of the Bristol and English Channels by a ship canal, running from Stolford, near Bridgwater, which has the advantage of being opposite Cardiff, viâ Bridgwater, Taunton, and Exeter, to Langstone Point, on the west side of Exmouth Bight, where the southern harbour would be formed.
This route is described as offering every facility for the work, the chief elevation, White Ball Hill, which is 536 feet high, being turned by following the course of the old Great Western Canal. A part of the existing canals, or their remains, and the floating basin at Exeter, with its 5½ miles of canal to the Exe, are intended to be acquired, and the deepest cutting on the whole system will not exceed 200 feet. The canal would be on the level of the sea, taking its supply chiefly from that source, with sea-locks only at each end. The dimensions proposed are: length, 62 miles; width at surface, 125 feet, at bottom, 36 feet; and depth 21 feet, the figures being much the same as those of the ship canal from Amsterdam to the Helder, which admits loaded vessels of 1000 to 1500 tons, drawing 18 feet. Coal from South Wales and adjoining fields would be likely to provide a large revenue for a short cut to the English Channel, and thence to London, say 355 miles, in order to better compete with the North of England. The cost of the scheme has been set down at 3,080,000l.
Proposed Waterways from Birmingham to the Sea.
Of all the towns in the United Kingdom that labour under the disadvantage of being remote from the sea, none are so entirely excluded from sea competition as the capital of the Midlands. Birmingham is unlike most of the other cities and towns of the country in this respect, that it is neither built upon a navigable river, nor upon any other waterway that would be likely to secure for traders some relief from their almost abject dependence upon railway transport. And yet the town and district of Birmingham are not altogether without the means of water transport. The locality is, in point of fact, the centre of a network of canals, which, if they were properly adapted to its requirements, would place it in direct communication by water with all the principal ports and markets in the kingdom. By the Birmingham, Warwick and Birmingham, Warwick and Napton, Oxford, Grand Junction, and Regent’s Canals it is placed in communication with the metropolis, although the distance is 163½ miles, as against only 100 miles by the shortest railway route. It has two similar routes to the great port of Liverpool—the first by the Birmingham, Staffordshire and Worcestershire, North Staffordshire, and Bridgwater Canals, and the river Mersey; the second route by the same route as regards the Birmingham Canal, and thence viâ the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal for a mile and a quarter, until the Shropshire Canal is broached, when the route is continued over this waterway for a distance of 68 miles, until the Mersey is reached. The distance by the first of these routes is 106½, and by the second only 89¼ miles, against 90 miles by railway. Hull is in water communication with Birmingham by way of the Birmingham, the Coventry, and the North Staffordshire Canals, and thence by the open navigation of the Trent and the Humber for a distance of 120½ miles. Finally, Birmingham has three separate water routes to the Severn ports, all of them terminating in the Gloucester and Berkeley section, after traversing the Severn for 30 to 44 miles—the entire distance being 86 miles in two cases, and 95 miles in another. The nearest means of getting at the sea available at present to the people of Birmingham is, therefore, 86 miles. But neither this nor any of the other routes indicated are of any real value to the Midlands, owing to the limited size of the canals, and the difficulty of working them as an unbroken chain of communication. Thus, taking the water route to London, the three first canals—the Birmingham, the Warwick and Birmingham, and the Warwick and Napton—have locks only 72 feet long by 7 feet broad and 4 feet draft. On the section of the Oxford Canal to be passed over, only 5 miles in length, there is no lock, but on the Grand Junction Canal, which has to be traversed for a distance of 101 miles, the locks are 14 feet by 6 feet by 4 feet 6 inches, and on the Regent’s Canal, where the transport terminates, the locks are 90 feet by 15 feet by 5 feet. The same condition of things applies to the physical characteristics of the waterways between Birmingham and Liverpool. Hull might be more readily reached if only the Trent were a little deeper, but as the average draft of the locks on that waterway does not exceed 3 feet 6 inches, it is clear that no vessel of large size could navigate it, and to dredge it to a reasonable depth for the whole distance of 102 miles would be a most serious undertaking. The most promising means of reaching the sea are therefore those provided by the Severn route. The river itself is available for the greater part of the distance on this route in one case, after traversing 26 miles of canal on the Birmingham, Stourbridge, and Staffordshire and Worcestershire systems. The average depths of the locks on the Severn over the 44 miles that it has to be navigated by this route is about 6 feet, while they are 99 feet long and 20 feet wide. These dimensions would allow of the passage of really good-sized boats, but as it is, with the broken gauge of the other canals, no boat can pass through to the Severn loaded beyond 33 tons. Another matter that seriously militates against the water facilities of Birmingham is that the different canals are, of course, under different administrations, and each authority levies tolls capriciously and disproportionately to the distance traversed and facilities afforded. Thus, it was given in evidence before the Canal Committee of 1883[59] that the Birmingham Canal Company charged in respect of bricks 11¼d. per ton for 6¾ or 7 miles, whereas the adjoining Warwick Canal Company charged 6½d. for 37¼ miles, and the Grand Junction Canal Company only charged 1s. 4½d. for 101 miles.
At different times during the last two or three years proposals have been put forward, having for their object to place Birmingham in direct connection with the sea, either—