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Feet of Clay? By L. J. Dalby
Readers of "The Wilts & Berks Canal" may have been given the impression that William Dunsford, Manager of that undertaking from 1817 to 1839, was the driving force responsible for what little success it enjoyed prior to the advent of the G.W.R. Some letters from the estate of George Butler of Woolstone near Faringdon, Berks, which have recently been deposited in the Berkshire Record Office throw doubts on whether Dunsford's efforts were always concerned with the well-being of his charge.
Butler, holder of 94 Wilts & Berks shares, whose trade was chiefly centred on Uffington Wharf, dealt in stone for local roads and was the recipient of a number of letters from traders complaining of Dunsford's management. In February 1833 Thomas Vincent of Semington Wharf states that he has been refused permission to examine the Company's books and in April 1836 he writes again complaining of the high charges levied by the Company. He states that Dunsford is too preoccupied with his own stone, coal, salt and slate trade and that it is unjust that he should have control of tonnage rates and arrange these to his own advantage. Vincent affirms that the original brick Priddy's bridge at Vastern which was in excellent condition had been taken down and replaced by a masonry one called Clarendon bridge built with stone supplied by Dunsford. He suggests that Somerset coal traders pay tonnage on returning empty boats but Dunsford's carrying Staffordshire coal do not, nor do his stone boats to the Worcester & Birmingham pay full rates. He suspects that some of these boats are actually Dunsford's property but repaired at Company expense and cites Richard Hodgson of Pewsham Lock House, the Company carpenter as witness to this.
Thomas Short of Abingdon charges Dunsford with selling stone above its real value and with buying timber of poor quality for repairs. He suspects that both Hallet, the Chairman, and Crowdy, the Chief Clerk are implicated with Dunsford and that the Committee of Management has no control over him. He refers to "the monstrous monopoly of Messrs. Dunsford and Company, unfair in principle and unjust in practice". Butler then wrote to the Kennet & Avon Company and in July 1836 received a reply from Sir James Whitley Deans Dundas confirming that Vincent had once been employed by them and that his evidence was trustworthy. The Kennet & Avon books were always available for Shareholder's inspection.
A minute from the Wilts & Berks Committee of 26 January 1837 ordered that the Clerk was to refuse any inspection of the share or minute books as it was the opinion of the meeting that a Proprietor is not warranted in calling for such an inspection. What occurred over the next two years is not known but the Committee changed their minds and at their meeting of 4 April 1839 Dunsford was ordered to meet Butler who had persisted with his request to inspect the books. Dunsford wrote to Butler on 5 April confirming that the books would be available to him. The outcome of the inspection is not recorded; it may be pure coincidence that Dunsford retired in 1839.
The deposited correspondence also contains a letter, dated 27 December 1839, from Edward Leigh Bennet, a Lechlade clergyman, referring to the spring Committee meeting. Before 1838 summer freight had been refused owing to lack of water and for that reason tolls were kept as high as the Act allowed. They would probably have to be reduced later to combat railway competition. Proprietors could expect no further improvements in dividends excepting during an exceptionally rainy summer. A site for a new reservoir was available at Tockenham and this should be built as soon as possible to enable the materials for constructing the railway to be carried. It was expected that the increased carrying possible would pay for the reservoir
Credit: Railway & Canal Historical Society, Vol 10 (1973) pp 38-9
Dragonfly Boat
The Wilts & Berks canal magazine ‘Dragonfly’ was named after a boat
Issue 1, November 1977:
"Our journal is named after the steam inspection launches of HR de Salis, deputy chairman of F.M.C* at the time. The second launch had many connections with W & B, being photographed in the locks at Ardington and Latton Basin. It was built at Abingdon in 1895 and its engine boiler built at Wantage"
* Fellows, Morton & Clayton
A set of glass slides held by Swindon Library shows ‘Dragonfly’ had passed along the Wilts & Berks Canal and North Wilts Canal in 1895, they don’t show ‘Dragonfly’ to the south-west of Swindon, although there is proof that it travelled along the entire canal.
H R de Salis’ book called the ‘Chronology of Inland Navigation’ was published in 1897, and at the back of the book Mr de Salis listed the journeys he had made on the inland waterways, perhaps to show his extensive knowledge. The table shows that ‘Dragonfly’ traversed the Wilts & Berks and North Wilts canals up to three times.
Brickmaking
Typical Brick Usage
- Bridges: Arch 35,000, Lift 15,000
- Locks: 178,000 + 425 Cubic feet of stone and 206,000 with a tail bridge
- Pewsham 3 locks needed 630,000 bricks
Newspaper Articles
In Tow
A published account of a pleasure trip on the Wilts and Berks Canal appeared in The Pall Mall Magazine, Vol 1 May to Oct 1893.
The trip along the 54 miles of the Wilts and Berks canal, from Semington to Abingdon, through 42 locks and took five days.
Quoting directly from the article; “The owner of a house-boat on the Kennet and Avon Canal, who had very kindly offered us the use of his craft on this water, wrote ‘Nothing but a common trade boat will, at present, go up the Wilts and Berks Canal, as the bridges (wooden) are too low, and out of order; unless these were properly kept it would not be worthwhile making a boat to suit them”.
However, this did not deter the intrepid explorers, and their comments on the offending bridges were “ there are a good many swing bridges on the Kennet and Avon and (much more troublesome) lift bridges on the Wilts canal...those on the Kennet and Avon swing open on a pivot, as a rule; those on the Wilts and Berks lift vertically, with balance weights...”
The Cetus Buildings
In an isolated spot along the north side of the Wilts & Berks Canal, immediately east of the Whale Bridge (built in 1804 as a stone arch bridge) across the canal on a field called Little Medgbury, a terrace of a dozen properties was built c.1841-42. These cottages were called Cetus Buildings, or Cetus Cottages (In ancient Greek, the word ketos - Latinised as cetus - denotes a large fish, a whale, or a sea monster) a pun on Whale Bridge, which had been named because of its hump-back shape.
These properties were built at right angles to the track that joined Lower Eastcott Farm and Upper Eastcott Farm. The back entrances to Cetus Buildings had steps at intervals leading down to the canal. The building was quite imposing with a classical pediment. It was visually similar to Falcon Terrace in Westcott Place, a Wilts & Berks Canal Company development that also backed onto the canal.
This circumstantial evidence has helped to maintain the long-held view of historians that the terrace was built by the Wilts & Berks Canal Company for bargees and other canal workers. Research carried out in 2014 by canal historian Jan Flanagan proved that Cetus Buildings was a private business venture by William Dunsford, who was one-time superintendent of the Wilts & Berks Canal, Edward Roden (Roden’s Sun Brewery in Highworth was associated with the Wilts & Berks Canal Company) and James Crowdy.
In 1841, the canal company sold land on either side of the Whale bridge to this trio, on which they built cottages in ‘brick, stone and slates’. Dunsford died in 1845, the same year that twelve Cetus Cottages, said to have been ‘newly erected’ and were put up for sale as part of the Crowdy estate. The 1851 census records the occupations of the cottagers (some properties were unoccupied, others had more than one worker) as:
William King, 24, coal haulier
Robert Day, 46, carter
Jacob Haines, 32, agricultural labourer
Henry Hill, 29, iron drilling labourer
George Aldridge, 26, boilermaker’s labourer
William Cook, 54, shoemaker
John Cook, 22, boilersmith
Elizabeth Cook, 19, dressmaker
George Smith, 16, groom
Thomas Garrett, 26, cattle dealer
Anne Weeks, 23, washerwoman
Thomas B. Newman, 22, groom
What is obvious is an absence of workers on the Wilts & Berks Canal.
At about the same time that Cetus Buildings were built, the Whale beer house was built adjacent, with a large yard. Here the bargees tethered their horses. Its first keeper was Jonas Head, who was first mentioned in 1841 when he was a 25 year-old beer house keeper of Eastcott. When he left in 1845, the Whale was taken over by Richard Dunn (b. Marston, Wiltshire, 1812). He titled himself ‘publican’, but at the same time was otherwise occupied as a railway plate layer for the GWR, in whose works two of his sons were also employed, one was an engine apprentice boilermaker, and the younger was a boilermaker’s labourer.
The Cetus Buildings became the south-western end of Medgbury Road when this was built in 1878 by the Trowbridge Building Society on the field formerly known as Great Medgbury. It had a terrace of 32 properties on the northern side, 35 on the southern side backing onto the canal next to Cetus Buildings, and a further 8 at right angles at the east end of the street. The Cetus Buildings were renumbered, with 1 Cetus Buildings becoming 80 Medgbury Road.
The Whale Bridge was rebuilt in 1893 as a flat span steel bridge by Swindon Corporation at a cost of £1,200. The Cetus Buildings and The Whale Hotel, as it had become known, survived until 1962 when they were swept away as part of the preparations for the construction of Fleming Way and would have stood on what in now its east bound carriageway. Whale Bridge continued to span the old and long abandoned canal bed for a few more years and was eventually removed in 1965 during the construction of Whalebridge Roundabout, which itself was removed in 2011/12 and turned into a junction as part the Kimmerfields development. The houses on the south side of Medgbury Road were demolished in the early 1980’s and replaced by Cockram Court, a council owned sheltered housing scheme, but apart from a few houses demolished in the 1960’s, the northern terrace still stands today.
Article written by Adrian Fisher
Joseph Hewer
Artesian Well
Book, “Swindon 50 Years Ago”, 1885 by William Morris, extract:
In constructing the Wilts and Berks Canal, the great difficulty was in devising means for keeping up the supply of water to the high level which branched out on every side from Swindon, and which would be lowered every time a boat passed through one of the locks.
To keep up the supply a very large body of water would have to be kept in reserve at some high level, and William Smith was consulted as to how this could best be accomplished. His first plan was to obtain the necessary supply of water by means of an artesian well to be sunk in the Kimmeridge clay at New Swindon, and under his directions a well was sunk a short distance east of the Wootton Bassett road, near to the canal, and between it and what is now known as Westcott-place.
The well was sunk to the depth of several hundred feet, and to a certain extent the anticipations of Mr Smith were realised, for, a water-bearing strata having been struck, the water rapidly filled the well to within a few feet from the top. This was disappointing, as it had been hoped that the water would flow over the top, as in the case of the other artesian wells, and, by being conveyed into the canal, would keep up the supply to the necessary level.
In the hope that the supply in the well would be constant-the presumption being that the supply was inexhaustible, only requiring more force to eject it, it was decided to erect steam-pumping machinery at what is now known as the old canal house. A powerful steam-power pump was erected but on being put to work it was found that the supply of water was so limited as to be altogether insufficient for the purpose required, it being possible to pump the well dry; and when this had been done a considerable time elapsed before it would fill up again. It was after these unsatisfactory results had been arrived at that it was resolved to construct the Coate Reservoir, and obtain the necessary supply of water from that source.
Many years afterwards an artesian well was sunk by the Great Western Railway Company about two miles distant from the one sunk by Mr Smith, in a north-east direction, with somewhat better success, and at the present time the same company are prosecuting extensive works in sinking another well mid-way between the two wells, but with what success time alone can tell.
Canal company records, Artesian well timeline:
- 1816 Jan: Digging begins
- 1816 Apr: No water found, William Smith engaged and Geology report said “Water will most probably soon be found, which may be expected to rise to the surface, but with such a head upon it, the discharge will be slow unless it be assisted by machinery”
- 1816 Aug: Well sunk to 267 ft with a 17in bore, water reached
- 1817 Jan: Horse Gin erected to draw water
- 1817 Mar: Another horse Gin erected
- 1818 Mar: William Dunsford letter that water rose 20 yards in the next 25 hours, 11 yards in the next 20 hours, 5 yards in the next 24 hours, and subsequently at the rate of about 1 yard per diem until it stood at 3 yards 2 feet 3 inches under the surface.
- 1818 Jun to December: Steam engine installed and working
- 1820 Feb: William Smith inspected the pit
- 1820 Apr: William Dunsword reports that the pit was 6 ft in diameter and contained 2 locks of water, however the engine sucked the well dry in 2 hours and the well took 3 days and nights to refill, the experiment was abandoned
- 1821 Jan: Engine sold
- 1821 May: Construction starts on the Coate water reservoir
