Using and Working the Canal - The Cargoes

Local trade

1868 canal charges

Whilst the canal had been built primarily to link the ports of Bristol and London, a proportion of the trade was more local.

Tolls

The Company charged tolls on goods carried at so many pence per mile and for this purpose goods were divided into 4 classes, each carrying a different charge.

This list (right) indicates the diversity of cargoes carried.

In order to properly administer the toll system, the company arranged for all canal craft carrying cargoes to be gauged at special docks.

This procedure involved measuring the freeboard, or dry inches, with a toll staff. Weights were added to the boat in ¼ ton or ½ ton stages.

Toll staff

In this way a toll collector could determine the weight carried by a narrow boat or barge of any size and capacity.

Tributary canals

At approximately the same time as the Kennet and Avon Canal became operational, the Somerset Coal Canal and the Wilts and Berks Canal were also completed.

Coal from the Somerset coalfields was brought down the coal canal to join the K&A at Brassknocker Basin at the western end of the Dundas Aqueduct.

From this junction coal could be taken anywhere on the Kennet and Avon, and soon became an important cargo.

The Wilts and Berks Canal ran from Semington, near Melksham, Wiltshire, to the Thames at Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and was used as a short cut for trade between the Midlands and the western end of the K&A.

These tributary canals whilst being important in their own right, also provided an added advantage in that they allowed an increase in markets for the products of those traders that used the K&A.

Cargoes

Whilst cargoes were often diverse in nature, George Hams spent much of his working life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries carrying tin plate boxes from Robbins Lane & Pinniger to Bristol, on the barge 'Unity', returning from Avonmouth near Bristol with deal boards and scantlings.

Dundas Wharf

A trip to Avonmouth or to London with a horse drawn barge was not an easy journey.

The canal company which, by then, was the GWR, did not allow steam powered vessels to trade on the waterway as they claimed that such craft caused bank wash and increased the cost of maintenance as more frequent dredging became necessary as a result.

As a consequence horse, or some times manpower, was the only motive force available, particularly as sails were normally impracticable within the confines of a canal.

Alec Huntly who lived beside the canal at Honeystreet remembered seeing timber stamped with exotic sounding names such as Archangel, Murmansk, Bergen and Oslo being delivered to Robbins Lane and Pinnegar's wharves.

That company also ran a fertiliser factory at Honeystreet, near Pewsey in Wiltshire and Tom Hams, who worked as a bargeman at Honeystreet, for example, used to take the barge Unity to Avonmouth to pick up carboys of acid using two horses to haul the laden barge back up the Avon and on to Honeystreet.

Dundas Wharf today

This journey was made necessary because the canal owners (GWR) considered the cargo too hazardous to transport by rail.

Only one horse was needed to return the empty carboys, so two days after the barge departed from Honeystreet the second horse, which was needed for the long haul back, would be walked to the station at Woodborough, near Pewsey to catch the train for Bristol and so meet up with the barge again.

Wharves

Many more wharves existed in the 19th century than are in evidence today.

At Newbury two whole canal basins now lie beneath the library and car park.

At Reading the entire length of the river was lined with wharves.

Although today, only one wharf can be seen at the Wiltshire market town of Devizes, where there were once seven.

Approaching Devizes by canal from the west, one first encounters Marsh Lane Basin at the bottom of Caen Hill. Most of the western edge of this triangle of water was wharf with a basin in the north corner. The main trade here was in road materials and manure.

Above Caen Hill there was a dock where St Peter's Church now stands.

The Quaker meeting house now occupies what was Sussex Wharf, and old stables are still located on Lower Wharf, behind Wadworth's brewery.

After this comes Town Wharf, which is the only one remaining today and just before the canal bends sharply is what was once a stone wharf at London Road.

Finally there was a sand wharf near Coate Bridge from where very fine sand that was used in foundry casting, was transported to Bath and Bristol.

Technical and economic change including the loss of trade to railways and road transport resulted in a gradual run down and the closure of many of the once busy wharves all along the waterway.

Devizes Wharf past and present

Next: Using and Working the Canal - Ancillary Trades