User:MIDI/Kemmett Canal

The Kemmett Canal was an early scheme to make the River Frome navigable between Framilode and Stroud. Devised in the late 1750s by John Kemmett and built between 1759 and 1763, it is the only known waterway that originally used cranes rather than locks to move goods up and down river, and is the earliest known use of containerisation on an inland waterway. The scheme was not a success, and construction ended in 1763 before the canal was complete. In 1779, the Stroudwater Navigation opened, providing a waterways link between the two places.

Background
The canal was the not the first proposal to connect Stroud with the River Severn. In the late 1720s, John Hore (who had recently made both the River Kennet and River Avon navigable) put forward a scheme to canalise the River Frome (known as the Stroudwater). The scheme was not adopted, despite receiving Royal Assent in 1730, likely because mill owners complained of the expected reduction in river flow at their watermills. A second scheme was undertaken by Richard Owen Cambridge in the 1740s, where a new channel was cut for navigation. There is no evidence of locks being used to circumvent the height difference at the mills, so it has been speculated that cranes may have been used. The Cambridge Canal, which ran from Framilode to the Bristol Road, was abandoned in 1751 when Cambridge vacated his Whitminster home.

A later proposal, led by John Dallaway in the mid-1750s, sought to use the river but make cuts bypassing the mills and pound locks to raise the canal level. Much like Hore's scheme 30 years earlier, Dallaway's proposal was met by staunch opposition from millers and the required funds could not be raised.

Construction and use
The waterway was built by four men from Tewkesbury – John Kemmett, Thomas Bridge, Arthur Wynde, and James Pynock. They planned to build a canal between Framilode and Stroud that used cranes rather than locks to overcome the 100 ft difference in altitude. This proposal aimed to avoid opposition of local millers who would suffer from the water losses through lockaging. The four men covered the cost of the canal themselves, with an agreement that it would be purchased by a canal company for £100,000 provided the waterway was operational by 29 September 1761, although this date was later extended to 1767. Parliament approved the scheme in April 1759, and construction began soon after. The canal widened and straightened the River Frome and used millponds and millraces as part of its course, and channels were dug to bypass mill buildings. Kemmett's 1776 plan (entitled A Plan of the River Stroudwater from Atherton to the Glocester Road to Bristol and Bath) identified 19 sections of meandering river that would be straightened. Where the river level changed by dropping over a weir at each mill, cranes were installed to lift containers between vessels on the different water levels; the canal is the only known waterway to have originally used this system, and is the earliest known use of containerisation on an inland waterway. The cranes used a water counterbalance system, whereby a large bucket was filled with water to raise the jib. When the cargo was ready to lower into the next vessel, a valve opened to release the water from the bucket and the jib would lower.

Decline
Construction continued until April 1763, likely as far as the mill at Stonehouse, approximately 6 mi from Framilode Pill, although proof of construction extends only to Meadow Bridge at Churchend, Eastington. It is probable that the cargoes were damaged by the regular loading and unloading, and the labour costs of handling the goods in the way the canal did meant that it could not compete with even the expense of turnpike roads. Unforeseen works to the waterway – such as the need to increase the head of water at mill dams to give greater draft – were difficult especially in the upper reaches of the waterway where the gradient of the terrain became greater. The canal also required at least one boat for each mill pound, resulting in operating costs far greater than that of a canal with pound locks.

After abandonment of the scheme, a further attempt to provide an inland waterway link to Stroud was made in the 1770s and the Stroudwater Navigation was completed in 1779.