The Wendover Arm Canal is part of the Grand Union Canal in England, and forms part of the British canal system. It is usually known as the Wendover Canal, but historically its builders referred to their branch canals as arms, hence its historical name of Wendover Arm. It was planned as a feeder to carry water from springs near the town of Wendover in Buckinghamshire to the main line of the Grand Junction Canal at Bulbourne near Startops End in Hertfordshire, but when it opened in 1799 it was made navigable, as the extra cost of making it was so small. Water supplies from Wendover were found to be inadequate, and a series of reservoirs were built. A pumping station at Whitehouses was superseded by the Tringford pumping station in 1817; its steam engines were replaced by diesel engines in 1911 and then by electric pumps.
The canal was used for the carriage of coal to three gasworks, and for transport of straw to London and horse manure in the opposite direction. It was also used by the Heygates flour mill, and Bushell's built boats on its banks. Despite several attempts to rectify leakage, including one of the earliest uses of asphalt for this purpose, no satisfactory solution was found, and most of the canal ceased to be used for navigation in 1904. Water levels in the upper section were lowered, and a pipeline was constructed along part of the bed, so that water could still be supplied to Tring summit.
The canal became part of the Grand Union Canal in 1929, and responsibility passed to British Waterways in 1963. Initial attempts to reopen the canal following the formation of the Grand Union Canal Society in 1967 were unsuccessful. But interest revived in 1985, the Wendover Arm Trust was formed in 1989, and in 1990 the Department of Transport agreed to build a navigable culvert where the new Aston Clinton bypass would cross the arm. The Trust split the task of reopening the canal into three phases, and phase 1 of the project, the first from the junction at Bulbourne to a winding hole near Little Tring Farm, was completed and reopened in 2005. Using Bentonite matting, they relined the section which leaked so badly and in 2009 the first of phase 2 were filled with water for the first time since 1904. Another section of a similar length was rewatered in 2015, and a bid made for Heritage Lottery Funding to speed the completion of phase 2. This was subsequently withdrawn, when it was found that parts of the canal had been filled with noxious material, rather than domestic rubbish, but grants were received in 2022 to enable all the contaminated material to be removed.
History
When James Barnes was planning the route for the Grand Junction Canal, he was faced with the problem of crossing the Chiltern Hills. Since ancient times, roads had passed through the Tring Gap, a low saddle in the hills near Tring, and Barnes opted for this route. The main line of the canal was authorised by an Act of Parliament obtained in 1793. A second Act was obtained on 28 March 1794, which authorised the construction of branches to Buckingham, Aylesbury, and Wendover. On its journey through the Chilterns, the main line reaches a height of at Tring summit. From the south, it ascends through a series of locks which follow the valleys of the rivers Gade and Bulbourne to reach Cowroast Lock. After a relatively short summit, the canal starts its descent at Bulbourne, picking up the valley of the River Ouzel.
Each boat crossing the summit level draws off nearly of water; Barnes knew that local water supplies would not be sufficient to sustain this. Wendover is located on the north-facing escarpment of the Chiltern Hills, with a chalk aquifer feeding natural springs which could supply water all year round, and so the Wendover branch was conceived as a non-navigable feeder, to carry water from the springs and streams in the area to the Tringford reservoirs which fed the Tring summit. However, the cost of widening it was small, and so it was always a navigable channel from the time of its completion in 1799.
The water supply was supplemented by mill streams, which were diverted into the canal after the company bought out mills at Wendover, Halton and Weston Turville. They also built Weston Turville reservoir in 1798, which was used to supply the mills in Aylesbury, whose water supply had been diverted into the canal. The reservoir was also used to replenish the canal and, as milling technology developed, this became its primary purpose. A steam pump was installed in 1814 which fed water to the canal through underground pipes. Although only installed as a temporary solution, it continued to operate until 1839.
It soon became clear that the supply of water from Wendover was insufficient, and in 1802 the first of four reservoirs was constructed. Wilstone reservoir was followed by Marsworth, completed in 1806, Tringford, completed in 1814 and Startops End, completed in 1815. The banks of Wilstone reservoir were raised in 1811 and 1827, and extensions in 1835 and 1839 increased its size four-fold. It now has a capacity of . There was a pumping station at Whitehouses, which pumped water from the reservoir into the canal. It housed a Newcomen engine which operated until around 1835, but the station was demolished when pumping was concentrated at Tringford.
Tringford pumping station was built in 1816 and 1817, and contained a Boulton and Watt beam engine. The cast-iron beam was long, and the single cylinder was in diameter, with an stroke. A second steam engine was added when the station was extended between 1836 and 1838, after which Whitehouses was demolished. A building to house diesel engines was added in 1911, and the second steam engine was scrapped in 1913. Following removal of the beam engine in 1927, the height of the main engine house was reduced. The diesel engines were later superseded by electric pumps.
Operation The canal was used for the carriage of coal, timber, straw and manure. Straw was shipped to London, for use as bedding for horses, and horse manure was transported in the opposite direction, from the bus depots of London, to be used as fertiliser on farms in the locality. Coal was delivered to Aston Clinton House from the canal, and to three gas works, which were located at Wendover, Halton and near Bucklandwharf bridge, which carries the old route of the A41 road over the canal. The coal came from the Midlands, and was used to produce gas for lighting. The Gas Works at Aston Clinton survived until 1964. In 1875, Heygates flour mill was built on the banks of the canal at Gamnel Bridge. It was powered by steam engines, for which the canal supplied the water. Grain was delivered by boat, and the processed flour was transported away by boat. After the end of the Second World War water transport was superseded by trucks, and in 2013 the mill operated a fleet of 16 trucks to deliver flour to markets in the south of England.
Next to the flour mill was a boat yard belonging to Bushell Brothers of Tring. There had been a boat repair business on the site from 1850, and Bushell's was established in 1875. As well as building and maintaining wooden boats for several small and medium-sized carrying companies operating on the canal network, they also trained a number of craftsmen who later held important positions at other boat building yards. The business closed in 1952. Very few original wooden boats survive, and only one built by Bushell's is known to exist. Roger was built in 1936 for Arthur Harvey-Taylor, a coal merchant and carrying company based at Aylesbury, and worked until 1968. After a period in use as a residential boat, and a period of dereliction, restoration was completed in 2000 by the Rickmansworth Waterways Trust, with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund. It is on the National Register of Historic Vessels. Other notable boats built at the yard and launched into the canal included a tug named Bess, built during the First World War, which was designed to pull ten 100-ton barges, and a tug named Progress, which was the largest boat built by Bushell's. Tools and other objects used at Bushell Brothers, as well as various old tools that one of the Bushell brothers, who was always interested in rural crafts, collected during his retirement, were donated to the Museum of English Rural Life in 1963.
Decline
The Wendover Arm itself had a working life of 100 years. Part of its downfall was that some sections leaked. Much of it was repuddled within 10 years of its construction, to try to prevent some of the leakage. There is speculation that a section called The Narrows was lined with concrete and faced with bricks to prevent leakage into a large neighbouring property, Aston Clinton House, but this is unconfirmed. The company tried using asphalt to line the canal in 1857, but that failed after 13 years, due in part to inexperience in the use of the material. In 1897, which was drier than usual, the Grand Union company decided that the arm was leaking more water than it was supplying, and stop planks were used to block off the arm at Little Tring. The stop planks were replaced by a stop lock, which was operational by 1901.
By 1904 the canal company had decided to abandon the arm as a navigation. The top were again repuddled, the water level was lowered, and all of the water flowing along it was fed into Wilstone reservoir. This put an extra load on the pumps at Tringford, as the Wilstone reservoir is at a lower level than the Tringford one. A pipeline was therefore laid from a sump at Drayton Beauchamp to the Tring pumping station, along the bed of the disused canal, so that water arrived at the pumps at a higher level. The new system was still not satisfactory, due to the large variations in flow along the feeder, and it was redesigned in 1912. After reconstruction, the water was pumped directly into the main line, with surplus water flowing into Tringford reservoir. The section of canal between Wendover and Drayton Beauchamp remained in water, resembling a chalk stream. In 1917, German prisoners of war built a railway bridge over it near Wendover. The standard gauge railway line was used to remove timber from Wendover Woods, and also supplied Halton Camp, a base for the Royal Flying Corps, which subsequently became RAF Halton. The line was in use until 1963, and the bridge was demolished as a training exercise by sappers in 1965. A footbridge was subsequently erected in the same location.
The Wendover Canal, as part of the Grand Junction Canal, became part of the Grand Union Canal on 1 January 1929, when an agreement between the parent company and the Regents Canal was authorised by Act of Parliament. Following nationalisation in 1948, responsibility for the canal passed to British Waterways in 1963 and then to the Canal & River Trust.
Revival Interest in the arm was revived in 1967, when the Inland Waterways Association held a public meeting in Watford to debate the future of the Grand Union Canal. In February 1967 the Grand Union Canal Society was formed, and later began campaigns to reopen both the Slough Arm and the Wendover Arm. The initial plan failed due to a lack of local interest, and because the legal position was not sufficiently strong to mount a successful campaign.