The Buckingham Canal Society

Click here for a sketch map of the Old Stratford Arm (it will open in a new window).

After its physical closure with the 'temporary' dam at Bridge 1 in 1944, the Old Stratford Arm lay untouched for many years, all its structures intact. Modern tales of serious leakage as well as the oft-stated reason for the hurried construction of the dam during the second world war (that the arm was taking water from the main line) must now be considered dubious - we have in our archive a photograph taken in 1958, from bridge 1 on the Old Stratford Arm, which clearly shows the canal with a nearly-full depth of water.

When the Buckingham Arm was legally closed in 1964, this seemed to signal the beginning of the destruction of canal-related buildings as well as bridges and the like, not only on the Buckingham Arm itself but also along the Old Stratford cut, despite its legal retention by British Waterways. The construction of the A5 dual carriageway in the early 1970's seemed to seal the fate of the canal, and within a few years both of the stone arch bridges over the Old Stratford Arm had been bulldozed. The canal bed was left intact, but over the years self-set undergrowth in the silt above the puddle clay gradually took over.

When the Society was formed in 1993 and began the job of clearing the Arm, the whole of the length to the A5 resembled a linear forest; the towpath, despite being in part a public footpath, was heavily overgrown. The only clear section ran from Bridge 2 for a hundred yards or so, where for many years sheep had been grazed! A walk along the Arm now will demonstrate what we have achieved in the intervening time - virtually all of the major growth has been cleared, with only a short length still holding a few tree-stumps. The light growth which springs up each summer takes less and less time to cut away each winter, and now the towpath is clear and open to walkers for the whole length. With permission from BW, the Society cuts the grass and weeds through the summer to keep the path open all year, a fact which has earned us considerable local credibility.

Turning to the future - our next real step has to be to get a proper engineering survey of the bed and structures of the Arm. Roy Sutton, the IWA consulting engineer, has walked the Arm and provided us an initial assessment of its condition, and we are now looking for quotes for a full feasibility study.

The actual bed of the canal remains almost entirely untouched, and factors such as the growth of the roots on tree-stumps which we have removed suggest that the puddle clay is also intact. The downhill embankment, which carries the towpath, has been breached in three places, where local farmers have bulldozed direct accesses between fields - one of our main engineering tasks is to rebuild a stable embankment at these points.

As mentioned above, both the bridges have been demolished to leave 'level' crossings - both carry rights of way, and will have to be rebuilt in the fullness of time. It seems likely that much of the original stone may be contained within the demolished causeways, and might be reused.

Better news is that the culvert which carries the Dogsmouth Brook under the canal between Bridge 2 and the A5 is in excellent condition, having been recently inspected and partially rebuilt by BW after last year's floods. And the flood paddle and culvert which drains the canal into the brook are also in good order, although the paddle-gear is missing, and one of the wing walls has cracked and will need rebuilding.

Earlier this year, the committee drew up a five-year plan for our restoration efforts, covering the works continuing at Bourton Meadow as well as on the Old Stratford Arm which, if we can adhere to it, would see both lengths re-watered at the end of that time. Given the increasing interest and support both of our own members and from outside (plus a reasonable portion of good luck), such a timetable is within the realms of possibility!

The Old Stratford Cut