Wendover Arm Canal

Wendover Arm Canal
The Stop Lock to Little Tring Bridge
Specifications
Status	Part restored
History
Original owner	Grand Junction Canal Co
Date of act	1794
Date completed	1799
Date closed	1897
Geography
Start point	Wendover
End point	Bulbourne
Branch of	Grand Union Canal

[ ] Wendover Arm Canal

Grand Union Canal Marsworth locks Bulbourne Gamnel bridge - Tring Ford Road Tringford Pumping Stn and Resr Stop lock Little Tring Road bridge End of navigable section culvert to Tringford Reservoir rewatered 2015 Drayton Beauchamp bridge old and new routes A41 Aston Clinton Bypass Canal diversion London Road culvert (old A41) B489 Stablebridge Road Harebridge Lane bridge Halton bridge Perch bridge Railway bridge (now a footbridge) Wendover Basin

The Wendover Arm Canal is part of the Grand Union Canal in England, and forms part of the British canal system. 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 Star Top End in Hertfordshire, but when it opened in 1799 it was navigable, as the extra cost of making it so was 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 A pumping station at Whitehouses was superseded by the Tringford pumping station in 1817; its steam engines were replaced by diesel engines in 1911 and then by electric pumps.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 problems with leakage, including one of the earliest uses of asphalt for this purpose, no satisfactory solutiuon was found, and most of the 6.7-mile (11 km) 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, and soon after a decision by the Department of Transport in 1988 to build a navigable culvert where the new Aston Clinton bypass would cross the arm, the Wendover Arm Trust was formed. They have split the task of reopening the canal into three phases, and phase 1 of the project, the first 1.3 miles (2 km) from the junction at Bulbourne to a winding hole near Little Tring Farm, was completed and reopened in 2005. They have started to reline the section which leaked so badly, using Bentonite matting, and at Easter 2015 the first 0.25 miles (0.40 km) of phase 2 were filled with water for the first time since 1904. Another section is expected to be rewatered in 2016, and Heritage Lottery Funding may speed the completion of phase 2.