Hereford's Lost Canal

Unless you know where to look, the only hint of the Hereford and Gloucester Canal in the city of Hereford today is in the street named Canal Road, which led to the canal's western terminus. In the east the canal joined the River Severn at Over, just west of Gloucester. The canal's success was short-lived.

Since the 1980s the Hereford and Gloucester Canal Trust has striven to restore the canal to its former glory. The Trust's greatest tangible achievements to date have been restoring the skew bridge at Monkhide, a section of canal at Yarkhill, and the Over Basin, across the border in Gloucestershire. Perhaps the greatest intangible achievement to date has been the partial winning over of opinion. Gradually people in authority are realising that this isn't just men playing with water and boats instead of railways and steam trains (and not just because some of the canal volunteers are women). Perhaps it's because they have noticed the thriving and growing canal leisure sector in adjacent Worcestershire, where almost as many people overnight on boats (13 per cent) as they do in bed and breakfast accommodation (14 per cent). A few years ago the planning authorities were successfully lobbied in Hereford city. The service road to a new retail park in the north of the city - connecting Newtown Road and Burcott Road - includes a bridge that spans the course of the old canal, instead of cutting through it or filling it with hardcore or concrete. Most recently, Herefordshire Council's blueprint for redeveloping the northern part of Hereford's city centre proposes restoration of the canal basin.

Inspired by photographs, I went to see the skew bridge at Monkhide. Do this yourself and, like me, you'll surely be disappointed. True, it's on private land, but no provision has been made for access - in short, you can't legitimately take a good look at engineer Stephen Ballard's mini-masterpiece, now a Grade II listed building. Ballard later worked as a railway engineer. His grandson, also called Stephen, unveiled a plaque on the bridge. It's a shame that the skew bridge hasn't been made into a modest 'place to visit'.

Records show that, typically, a lock keeper would be paid 14s per week but his employers would deduct 2s per week for rent. Lock cottages may have been rudimentary, but what could someone today earning, say, £350 per week rent for £50 per week? This brings to mind the old but still valid expression, 'the best place to put your money is in bricks and mortar' - house bricks, that is, not canal bricks.

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