The Wilts and Berks Canal is a canal in the historic counties of Wiltshire and Berkshire, England, linking the Kennet and Avon Canal at Semington near Melksham, to the River Thames at Abingdon. The North Wilts Canal merged with it to become a branch to the Thames and Severn Canal at Latton near Cricklade. Among professional trades boatmen, the canal was nicknamed the Ippey Cut, possibly short for Chippenham.

The canal was opened in 1810, but abandoned in 1914 – a fate hastened by a breach at Stanley aqueduct in 1901. Much of the canal subsequently became unnavigable: many of the structures were deliberately damaged by army demolition exercises; parts of the route were filled in and in some cases built over. In 1977 the Wilts & Berks Canal Amenity Group was formed with a view to full restoration of the canal. Several locks and bridges have since been restored, and over of the canal have been rewatered.

Name The official name of the canal is the "Wilts and Berks Canal" as cited in the local acts of Parliament that authorised its building and abandonment. The "Wiltshire and Berkshire Canal" is incorrect. Neither is it correct to refer to the "North Wilts Canal" as the "North Wiltshire Canal".

The canal's original name is retained for historical reasons despite local council boundary changes in 1973 that transferred part of Berkshire through which the canal passes (mostly the Vale of White Horse) to Oxfordshire.

History

The idea for the Wilts and Berks Canal grew from a proposal to construct a canal between Lechlade on the Thames and Severn Canal and Abingdon-on-Thames on the River Thames. A meeting was held at Abingdon in 1784, and the proposal gained support among local landowners. Subsequently, Frederick Page suggested a canal suitable for Thames barges to run between a junction with the Thames and Severn at Kempsford and Wantage, passing through Highworth near Swindon and Longcot. At Wantage, it would split into two, with one branch going to Abingdon and the other to Wallingford, further downstream on the Thames. The Kennet and Avon Canal had also surveyed a route through Calne and Chippenham, which had been discarded in favour of the route through Bradford-on-Avon and Devizes. A meeting to promote the ideas was held at Swindon on 12 November 1793, but presentation of a bill to Parliament was postponed until the plans were more mature.

James Black, representing the Thames and Severn Canal, asked William Whitworth the engineer for his canal to survey the route, including a link to his canal. By 22 February 1794, plans were sufficiently advanced that they were approved by a committee meeting at Swindon. The Earl of Peterborough chaired the meeting, which also heard that agreement had been reached with the Kennet and Avon Canal, although the junction with the Thames was still not finalised. By the meeting held on 16 May, Abingdon had been chosen as the connection to the Thames.

A bill for a canal from Trowbridge on the Kennet and Avon Canal, running through Melksham, Dauntsey, Wootton Bassett, Swindon, Shrivenham, and Charlow to terminate on the Thames at Abingdon, was submitted to Parliament. It faced opposition from the city of Oxford, who maintained that trade on the Thames above Abingdon and to the city would be considerably damaged, but despite their stance, the bill passed into law on 30 April 1795, when the (35 Geo. 3. c. 52) received royal assent. The length of the canal was initially , but provision was made for developments at the Trowbridge end. The Kennet and Avon Canal were proposing to alter their route, and the act allowed the proprietors to give the section from Trowbridge to Semington to the Kennet and Avon Canal Company if their new route was authorised within three years and built within seven. The deviation was authorised, and the Kennet and Avon built the length from Trowbridge to Semington, from where their main line continued on to Devizes. The length of the Wilts and Berks Canal was thus reduced to .

As well as the main line, the act authorised three branch canals, to Calne, Chippenham and Wantage. It allowed the company to raise £111,900 through 1,119 shares at a cost of £100 each for the construction of the canal, with powers to raise an extra £150,000 if required. Although the plans submitted to Parliament had been signed by both Robert Whitworth Snr. and his son William, the younger Whitworth worked with John Ralph on costings for the work. This was estimated at £103,603 for the original main line and £8,350 for the branches. Robert Whitworth was contracted as engineer for the construction, on a similar basis as he had worked for the Ashby Canal. He would be responsible for design work and setting out, and would arrange to be on site for around three months each year. His son William would be on site as resident engineer, handling the day-to-day supervision of the project.

Work started at the western end, in the hope that once the canal reached Chippenham and Calne, they could generate revenue from the transport of coal, although this depended on the Somerset Coal Canal and the western end of the Kennet and Avon being completed. There were problems with cash flow, as the sale of shares had only raised £61,512 by 1801, all of which had been spent, leaving a shortfall of £85,199. They could not use the powers of the Wilts and Berks Canal Act 1795 to borrow money until all of the original shares had been bought, and so another act of Parliament, the (41 Geo. 3. (U.K.) c. lxviii), was obtained allowing the company to raise a further £200,000 from shares to complete the canal. Having failed to sell all the £100 shares, new shares were issued at steadily decreasing values, to attract new classes of investors. The shares were issued at £65, £60, £40, £25 and finally £12 10s. A total of 7,436 shares were eventually sold, raising £224,393. This was supplemented by £22,200 from optional notes and by the company running up debts.

The canal was cut during the years 1796 to 1810. Robert Whitworth Snr. remained as an engineer on the canal from 1796 until he died in 1799, making regular progress reports to the company. William Whitworth was resident engineer during this period and subsequently became engineer until the canal's completion. The company hoped that construction would be completed in 1805, but it was not, and the canal opened in stages as it was finished. Swindon was reached in June 1804, South Marston in July 1805, and it opened to near Longcot in December 1805. A branch to Longcot was constructed in 1807, although it was not authorised, and this was resolved by an addition to the (5 & 6 Will. 4. c. lix). Abingdon was reached on 22 September 1810. A boat carrying the proprietors passed through the final lock into the Thames at 2:30pm, who then departed to the Council Chamber for a celebration that went on late into the evening. The final cost of the project was £255,262.

The main canal was long, with branches totalling a little over to Chippenham, Calne, Wantage and Longcot. Although initial plans were for a canal suitable for Thames barges, it was cut as a narrow canal to take narrowboats long and wide. From Semington, the canal passed through 24 locks, which raised the level by to the summit pound between Wootton Bassett and South Marston. A further 18 locks enabled the canal to descend to Abingdon. There were also three locks on the Calne branch. There were three short tunnels.

Expansion Before the canal was completed, the proprietors were already thinking about how the canal could become part of a larger network. In 1809, they proposed a Western Junction canal, which would have crossed the Thames on an aqueduct and continued for a further by way of Thame and Aylesbury to join the Grand Junction Canal at Marsworth. Both canal companies agreed to contribute £100,000 to fund the project, but opposition from the Thames Commissioners, the Kennet and Avon Canal, the Oxford Canal and the Warwick and Napton Canal resulted in the bill being defeated in Parliament on 25 February 1811. A branch from the Grand Junction to Aylesbury was completed in 1815, and the two canals looked again at completing the link between Aylesbury and Abingdon in 1813 and 1817. They made a joint survey for the route in 1819, and the plan was reconsidered in 1828, but no further action occurred.

Their next plan was for a Bristol Junction Canal in 1810, running from Wootton Bassett via the Gloucestershire coalfield to Bristol. An initial survey was made by William Whitworth, and a bill presented to Parliament in 1811, but it was withdrawn amidst opposition from the Thames Navigation Commissioners, landowners and the Oxford Canal. A Central Junction Canal was the next proposal, running over from Abingdon to the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal. John Rennie oversaw a survey of its route, and the cost was estimated at £470,000, but no further action ensued when there was opposition from the Grand Junction Canal, the Oxford Canal and the Warwick and Napton Canal.

Throughout construction of their own canal, the Wilts and Berks Canal Company had considered a link to the Thames and Severn Canal, and in 1810 they wrote to the Thames and Severn to say that William Whitworth had surveyed a route from Wootton Bassett to Yeoing (now known as Ewen), near Kemble in Gloucestershire. The project, named the Severn Junction Canal, was altered to run from Swindon to Latton junction on the Thames and Severn, and was presented to Parliament in early 1811, but was withdrawn because it would probably have been defeated. By 1812, it had become the North Wilts Canal, and authority to build it was obtained in 1813. Of the many plans, this was the only one to reach completion when it opened on 2 April 1819.

The was originally formed as a separate company by the (53 Geo. 3. c. clxxxii). The branch was long and included 11 locks, an aqueduct over the River Thames and a small tunnel near Crichlade. Having borrowed £15,000 from the Exchequer Bill Loan Commissioners to help finance its construction, the company could not meet government demands for repayment of that loan, and after only two years of independence, proposed that it should merge with the Wilts and Berks Canal, whose shareholders had also contributed £15,000 to its construction costs. The merger was authorised by the passing of the (2 Geo. 4. c. xcvii). The Wilts and Berks Canal took over the debt with the Exchequer Bill Loan Commission, North Wilts shareholders received £100 shares in the parent company for their existing shares, and the act also consolidated all of the previous legislation for both companies, with earlier acts of Parliament being repealed.

Operation