Bude Canal Walk - Part Two
This is another stroll around the canal harbour and basins and continues on from part one of the story, which included the breakwater.
The walk starts at the sea lock itself.
The idea of building a canal had been considered in the late eighteenth century however, there were numerous problems to over come (See The Canal Story). Eventually, many of the main issues had been identified and on the 14th April 1818 James Green was engaged to review all the previous plans for a canal at Bude and to put forward his own proposals. He submitted his ideas early 1819 and following his formulations, finance for the building of a canal at Bude progressed to the point that his plans were accepted; James Green was appointed as engineer for the project on 23rd July 1819.
But there was a very big obstacle to overcome first in the form of an enormous sandhill covering the whole area from Efford Down across nearly to Ebbingford Manor and to the river Neet at Nanny Moore’s bridge. The sand had to be removed, at least where the canal and the harbour basins had to be built.
Green had put forward two ideas for the lock gates; the first was that lock would accommodate vessels of between 40 and 50 tons, essentially large barges that would be beached when the tide was out and filled with sand. When the tide came in, these barges were then floated into the lock and into the canal, from where the same barges could progress to Helebridge, where they would offload their cargo of sand onto smaller barges.
The second proposal, which was eventually accepted, was that a larger sea lock be constructed capable of holding seagoing vessels of 70 to 100 tons. In addition, warehouses could be built Canal side, facilitating general trading of Coal from Wales and other goods from Bideford and Bristol. In the same year of 1819, the Bude Harbour and Canal Company was formed.
Huge numbers of navies were engaged for this work, and many were accommodated in Bude. Many of the men employed were veterans of the Great War.
Despite all the complexities of this enormous project, which included the raising of manpower, logistics of acquiring and installing all the necessary equipment, financing of the projects and overcoming complaints from farmers whose land the canal passed, building work commenced on 23 July 1819.
that broke the lock gates.
Just two years later, the canal and lock gates at Bude had reached the state that some testing could commence. At this time, it was still planned to transport the sand from the beach to the canal by locking in and out barges and this system was tested on the 21st April, 1821. The report of the time records that, “we took barge No 1 out of the sea lock and (having beached the barge on the sand) put on board her about 24 tons of sand; in the afternoon (as the tide rose) we got her into the basin. It was noted that, “the barge drawing 3ft 6 inches aft and 2 feet 10 inches forward”.
Despite this proving feasible, it was a complex and slow process and also required a lot of water from the canal to operate the locking in and out of the barges. One of the major and influential benefactors of the canal was Lord Stanhope and he proposed in April 1822, the use of a narrow rail system going down to and radiating out along the beach. This initially required more expenditure, but the unit cost would be less. This was eventually adopted and instigated.
The actual sand rails changed in design overtime and with operating experience and, to some extent, with availability. It is further complicated by the fact that rails were used early on in the construction of the breakwater, to transport the huge blocks of rocks forming that structure.
Early forms were 4 foot (120cm) “wide L-shaped”, plateway rails; there was yet another “U-shaped” form used. Both these forms, however, had the disadvantage of holding small stones within the form and dislodging the cartwheels from the tracks. It was known that these early forms were used but they had not been seen in living memory until early in 2025 when stormy weather exposed them on the riverbed.
These U-shaped rails did help to guide the trucks at the junctions to ensure they ended up at the canal side. The photo does show what looks like a typical routing junction with a toggle to direct the cart- now locked with rust. It also happens to show a small pebble resting at the junction, showing how it could deflect the wheels of the cart.
After the 1st World War, it is understood that two-foot (60cm) rails were brought back from the trenches and used. These rails had a modern “I-shape”, the same as used on modern rail systems and it is these that can be seen on the incline leading up from the beach.
It is unfortunate that these rail had become slowly dislodged by storms and recemented out of line. Hence one of the reasons for their removal and replacement during the recent summer 2025 work.