BW157/10

Somersetshire Coal Canal

1940-1944

BW157/10

The Somersetshire Coal Canal was promoted by the mine owners of the North Somerset coalfields as a means of transporting their coal to the markets in Bath and the surrounding area. It was authorised by an Act of Parliament in April 1794. The canal was surveyed by John Rennie and William Smith and was to have two arms, with connecting tramroads, to the many coal pits in the Radstock and Timsbury areas. It was built as a 17¾-mile narrow canal with 23 locks and 1 tunnel running from Paulton to a junction with the Kennet and Avon Canal at Limpley Stoke, with a second line from Wellow to Radstock. From Midford there was a 135 foot rise in level along both routes. At Combe Hay on the line to Paulton the committee tried Robert Weldon's patented 'Caisson Lock', which although was built and was successful in 1799 was abandoned after the failure of its masonry. An incline plane was built to replace the caisson lock and proved unsuccessful and in 1802 the committee agreed to build locks. The flight of 19 locks was finally opened in 1805. The Radstock Line was never connected to the main line by water, the initial connection was by tramway, which was inconvenient to users. Because of the inconvenience and shortage of water along the Radstock Line it was rebuilt as a tramway along its length in 1815. The canal was one of the most successful in the country, and in the 1820s carried over 100,000 tons of coal per year. The opening of the railway line between Radstock and Frome started the decline in the canal's fortunes, by taking away the tramway's coal trade and in 1871, the tramway was sold to the Somerset and Dorset Railway who built their Bath to Evercreech line over much of its course. The Bristol and North Somerset Railway's Hallatrow to Camerton branch of 1881 further decreased the canal's trade on the Paulton arm. The railways increasingly took trade and the decrease in coal output, combined with a fall in trade from the Kennet and Avon, caused the canal company to close the canal. The official liquidator tried to sell the canal as a going concern in 1894 but to no avail, and the canal eventually closed in 1898. In 1904 the abandoned canal was sold to the Great Western Railway, who in 1907-10 built the Camerton to Limpley Stoke Railway over much of the northern, Paulton, course. The tunnel at Combe Hay was drained and used as a railway tunnel instead. For further information on the Somersetshire Coal Canal see Edward Paget-Tomlinson's The Illustrated History of Canals & River Navigations and Charles Hadfield's The Canals of South & South East England.