Stafford Riverway Link

This is the story of an almost unknown navigation that time nearly forgot, a waterway that until recently dared not speak its name, a navigation that once linked the county town of Stafford with the National Waterways Network.

This Navigation was a branch of the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal. It left the main canal at Baswich, near St.Thomas’ Bridge (Bridge 101), opposite the site of the former Baswich Salt Works (now the Baswich Industrial Estate) and there was an elegant Roving Bridge at the junction. There was then a small pound (about 100 feet long and 20 feet wide) with sandstone walls, and a lock house on the left. The channel led to a trough aqueduct over a drainage channel, before entering a lock, which was known as Baswich Lock or St.Thomas’ Lock. The lock was built to the same dimensions as locks on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal and had a nominal fall of 6 feet 6 inches but the actual amount depended on the river level. Boats would leave the lock and turn left to enter the River Sow directly. After about a mile upstream, boats would enter a short channel that led to a wharf just before Green Bridge in the centre of Stafford. (Ordnance Survey Landranger Sheet 127: from SJ 945 228 to SJ 923 230).

The Navigation forms the first part of Stafford Borough Council’s Littleworth to Baswich Bridge Waterside Doorstep Walk and the towpath is used as a footpath.

From Stafford Town Centre there is footpath access to the River Sow at Green Bridge (Bridge Street) and there is convenient car parking nearby. Part of this route has access for disabled people.

For lots more information go to the website:

http://www.stafford-riverway-link.co.uk

For their latest newsletter click on the link below (Adobe Acrobat is needed to open the file)

NEWSLETTER 2010 JUNE.pdf