Alfold and The Wey and Arun Canal

A small but select group of friends gathered near the back entrance to Dunsfold Airfield for a
short post-Christmas wander through the woods around Alfold in Surrey. After heavy rain the
preceding day the frozen ground had turned into a quagmire but fortunately the first half hour's
walk to Alfold village was on well-surfaced paths, so by the time we arrived we were still in
presentable condition.

First port of call was St Nicholas' Church , first built in the 12th century, with a south aisle and
then a north aisle added at roughly hundred year intervals. The church is notable for its medieval
bell tower supports made of solid oak timber, a fine Norman font, and a churchwardens' chest of
1687.

Outside is a very well worn slab of Sussex marble which is said to mark the grave of Jean Carre,
one of the last of the French glassmakers in this area, who died in 1572. Second port of call was
to the Crown Inn, where a reserved table awaited us.
Suitably refreshed and fed, we set off down Rosemary Lane (which, for a dead end, seemed very
busy!) towards Highbridge.

This marks the spot where the lane used to cross the Wey & Arun Canal, the tidied-up remains of
which can be seen in the cottage garden (above) and in more derelict form on the other side of
the road (below).
From Highbridge we headed off into the woods, meeting up with the dried up bed of the canal
again about half a mile further on. We then followed the muddy towpath for a couple of hundred
yards to the site of Knighton's Glassworks. The steps down from the towpath that I remembered
had long since rotted away – Tig gave an excellent demonstration of descending a slippery clay
slope the quick way – and the interpretative board had almost completely faded. Eventually we
worked out that the moss-covered lumps in front of us were, in fact the remains of the
glassworks, but there were no longer any signs of the remains of the ancient molten drips of glass
that could once be seen there.

From the glassworks the older members of the party continued along the towpath – the younger
ones decided that the bed of the canal was more exciting – past the site of a derelict lock, the
only indication of which was a rise in the level of the path. Although largely drained, the canal
bed beyond the site of the lock has been cleared and only awaits the return of the water.

Part of the towpath is closed off to the public and we therefore had to turn off through the woods
to get back to the car park. Some rather unkind comments were subsequently made about the
leader's navigational skills on this section – deciding which of two paths to take by the traditional
method of "eeny, meeny, miney, mo" and doubts were raised about his lunchtime beer
consumption, but the cars were eventually spotted through the trees before it got dark, unlike the
previous year's midwinter expedition.

Other photos (taken the following day):

looking south from the bridge over the canal by the back gate of Dunsfold Airfield. The culvert
on the right drains off the airfield into the canal.

looking north from the same bridge to where a canal trust working party was cutting down trees.
It is hoped to re-open this section soon for hire boat trips.
above and below: the rewatered section near the car park, south and north of the road,
respectively.
all that remains to link the two is to replace the long-vanished bridge which once carried the road
clear of the canal at this point.

The Wey and Arun Canal – London's lost route to the sea
The idea of building a canal to link the River Wey and the River Arun, and so provide an inland
water route between London and the south coast, was first put forward in the mid-17th century.
Nothing became of it at that time, but a hundred years later the River Wey had been made
navigable from the Thames as far as Godalming and the Arun to beyond Pulborough, and a
scheme was promoted for a canal to fill the 20-mile gap between them. However, work did not
start until 1813 and the canal was not completed until 1816.

The new canal was a failure right from the start. The through traffic which had been expected
failed to materialise. The coastal route proved more attractive now that the war with the French
had ended and Channel shipping was no longer threatened. Local traffic was insufficient to pay
the costs of running the canal although the benefits to agriculture in the area were considerable.

The supply of water to keep the canal topped up was always a problem. The company had
enlarged Vachery Pond, just south of Cranleigh, to act as a reservoir, but even so, there were
often restrictions in dry periods. This meant the carrying capacity of boats had to be reduced,
further undermining the venture's usefulness.

The canal had been in operation for only a couple of decades when railways began to spread
across the south of England. In 1865 the line from Guildford to Horsham via Cranleigh opened
for business, depriving the canal of even its local traffic. By 1871 it was bankrupt and was
abandoned after a working life of just 55 years. It was already in a poor state of repair, and it did
not take long for nature to begin to reclaim its course. Most of the bridges were demolished once
the canal had been drained, and even brickwork from the locks seems to have been scavenged.
Parts of the canal bed were sold off and have now been built over but its old course can be traced
for considerable distances.

Interest in the canal was revived in the 1960s with the publication of Paul Vine's poignantly-
titled book London's Lost Route to the Sea. With several schemes to restore closed canals being
promoted in other parts of the country, local enthusiasts set up a Trust to attempt the 'impossible'.
Progress has been slow, but many parts of the canal have now been restored and rewatered,
although it will still be many years before there is any chance of reopening it as a through route.

Author Ron Strutt