Somerset Coal Canal

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The Somerset Coal Canal (originally known as the Somersetshire Coal Canal) was a narrow canal in England, built around 1800 from basins at Paulton and Timsbury via Camerton, an aqueduct at Dunkerton, Combe Hay, Midford and Monkton Combe to Limpley Stoke where it joined the Kennet and Avon Canal. This gave access from the Somerset coalfield, which at its peak contained 80 collieries, to London. The longest arm was 18 miles (29 km) long with 23 locks. From Midford an arm also ran via Writhlington to Radstock, with a tunnel at Wellow.

A feature of the canal was the variety of methods used at Combe Hay to overcome height differences between the upper and lower reaches of the canal, initially by the use of caisson locks and when this failed an inclined plane and then a flight of 22 locks. The Radstock arm was never commercially successful and was replaced first with a tramway in 1815 and later incorporated into the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway. The Paulton route flourished for some years until the coming of the railway and closed in 1898.

Much of the course of the canal has since been used for a railway.

In October 2006 a grant was obtained from the Heritage Lottery Fund to carry out a technical study on one of the locks and associated structures at Combe Hay.

In 1763 coal was discovered in Radstock and mining began in the area, however transport was a major problem because of the poor state of the roads. This cost and the potential for cheaper delivery of coal from south Wales via the Monmouthshire Canal led to the proposal for a canal which could transport the coal to Bath and Wiltshire. Initial surveys were conducted during 1793 by William Jessop and William Smith under the direction of John Rennie who presented the report on 14 October 1793 estimating the cost of construction of the canal at £80,000.

Smith who also worked at the Mearns Pit at High Littleton observed the rock layers, or strata, at the pit he realised that they were arranged in a predictable pattern, and that the various strata could always be found in the same relative positions. Additionally, each particular stratum could be identified by the fossils it contained, and the same succession of fossil groups from older to younger rocks could be found in many parts of England. Furthermore, he noticed an easterly dip of the beds of rock – small near the surface (about three degrees) then bigger after the Triassic rocks. This gave Smith a testable hypothesis, which he termed The Principle of Faunal Succession, and he began his search to determine if the relationships between the strata and their characteristics were consistent throughout the country. This would earn him the name "Strata Smith" and recognition as the "Father of English Geology".

The canal was authorised by an Act of Parliament entitled "An Act for making and maintaining a navigable Canal, with certain Railways and Stone Roads, from several Collieries in the county of Somerset, to communicate with the intended Kennet and Avon Canal, in the parish of Bradford, in the county of Wilts" of 1794, and further detailed surveys were carried out by Robert Whitworth and John Sutcliffe, who was then appointed as chief engineer. In May 1795 tenders were invited for the first section to be built from the meadows near Goosehard (or Gooseyard) near Paulton to Hopyard in the Parish of Camerton. In June 1795 a contractor, (Houghton & Son from Shropshire), started the terminus at Paulton meadows using local labour. This first section of canal was completed on Monday the 1st of October 1798, the first load of coal along the canal was delivered to Bath via Dunkerton.

Some 14 collieries at Timsbury & Paulton were connected to the Timsbury basin and Paulton meadow terminus by tramways. This involved the construction of three tramway bridges over the Cam brook. A further bridge at Dunford was required for the Canal, at this point tramways connected the Withy Mills and Radford workings. The course of the Cam brook was modified at various places to protect the canal from erosion.

In 1799 William Whitmore and his partner, Norton, offered to build a balance (or geometrical) lift without payment, on condition that if successful they were to have £17,300 and a royalty of 4 pence per ton of goods passed. The design of the caisson lock was not a success, on the 15th February 1798 the first descent failed. Mr. Weldon (the inventor), made one successful descent on the 7th June and said "I will undertake to pass 1,500 tons of goods through the lock in 12 hrs". Tenders were invited on the 28th June for further constructions. Two more attempts to use the caisson lock took place on the 11th April & the 2nd of May (only the latter was successful). By the 22nd August 1799 the second rebuilding of the caisson had been abandoned. It was replaced by three locks and an inclined plane, but the plane was not successful either, and the company proposed to raise more money to finance the building of a flight of 19 locks to replace it, the use of which would incur an additional toll of one shilling per ton on all traffic. This was vigorously opposed by the owners of the Kennet and Avon Canal and the Wilts and Berks Canal, on the grounds that the price of coal to their customers would be too high. After negotiation, the company obtained a new Act of Parliament on 30 April 1802, which authorized the formation of a separate body called "The Lock Fund of the Somerset Coal Canal Company", with powers to raise the sum of £45,000. The money was raised by the Kennet and Avon, the Wilts and Berks and the Somerset Coal Canal each contributing £15,000, and the one shilling surcharge was to be levied until the capital had been repaid, after which it would cease.

The act set the tonnage rates to be charged:

For all Coal, Coke, &c 2½d per Ton, per Mile.

For all Iron, Lead, Ores, Cinders, &c 4d

For all Stones, Tiles, Bricks, Slate, Timber, &c 3d

For all Cattle, Sheep, Swine and other Beasts 4d

For all other Goods 4d

For every Horse or Ass Travelling on the Railway 1d each.

For every Cow or other Neat Cattle ditto ½d ditto. ditto.

For Sheep, Swine and Calves ditto 5d per Score.

Fractions of a Mile to pay for Half a Mile, and of a Ton as a Quarter of a Ton;
Rates for Wharfage to be determined by the Company. In addition to the above Rates, One Shilling per Ton is paid on all Goods to the Lock Fund, which also receives Three Farthings per Ton from the Coal Canal company.

The boats were weighed at Midford where a Weigh house was constructed in 1831. The boats would be floated into a one-ended lock, the gate closed and the water drained. This left the boat resting on a cradle suspended by angled rods attached to a beam which took the weight of the boat. One-pound weights were then added to a pan with one pound being equivalent to one hundredweight until the system was in equilibrium and the weight was recorded. The weigh house at Midford was one of only four known to have been built in England and Wales.

The canal opened in 1805 and was used for passenger traffic as well as coal. In 1814 the Benedictine monks who came to Downside Abbey are said to have used the canal for the last stage of their journey. Another cargo carried by the canal was limestone from Combe Down. The peak level of cargo carried was in 1838 at 138,403 tons resulting in over £17,000 of tolls being paid. Cargoes of over 100,000 tons were common until the 1870s when competition from railways reduced the amount carried.

The canal went into liquidation in 1893; it closed in 1898 and was finally abandoned in 1904 when it was sold to the Great Western Railway for £2,000, and used as a branch of the Bristol and North Somerset Railway.

The closure caused problems across the Somerset coalfield especially to the pits in the northern area, which had relied on the canal for transportation.

When the Radstock branch was constructed, it was intended to link it to the main line of the Paulton branch at Midford, which was at a lower level at this point. The Lock Fund created in 1802 was to have paid for the construction of the locks, but because there was little regular traffic on the branch, the company built one lock, an aqueduct over the Midford Brook, and a short tramway to bridge the gap. This contributed to the economic failure of the branch, and its replacement by a tramway in 1815. The tramway was laid along the former canal's towpath. It was single-line with passing places every 600 yards (549 m), and was originally laid using cast iron plates on stone block sleepers, but was relaid using wrought iron plates.