page_title: Kennet and Avon Canal
section_title: Bath to Devizes
hierarchical_section_title: Kennet and Avon Canal / Route / Bath to Devizes
caption_attribution_description: Dundas aqueduct, between Bradford on Avon and Bath. Here the canal crosses high above the River Avon (the narrowing is the aqueduct). Photographed by Adrian Pingstone in August 2005 and placed in the public domain.
context_page_description: The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of 87 miles, made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than solely to the central canal section. From Bristol to Bath the waterway follows the natural course of the River Avon before the canal links it to the River Kennet at Newbury, and from there to Reading on the River Thames. In all, the waterway incorporates 105 locks.
  The two river stretches were made navigable in the early 18th century, and the 57-mile canal section was constructed between 1794 and 1810. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the canal gradually fell into disuse after the opening of the Great Western Railway. In the latter half of the 20th century the canal was restored in stages, largely by volunteers. After decades of dereliction and much restoration work, it was fully reopened in 1990. The Kennet and Avon Canal has been developed as a popular heritage tourism destination for boating, canoeing, fishing, walking and cycling, and is also important for wildlife conservation.
context_section_description: The restored Bath Bottom Lock marks the divergence of the River Avon and the canal. It is situated south of Pulteney Bridge. Just upstream of the Bottom Lock are a side pound and a pumping station that pumps water "upstream" of the locks, to replace that used each time a boat passes through. The next of the six Bath Locks is Bath Deep Lock, numbered 8/9 as two locks were combined when the canal was restored in 1976. The new chamber has a depth of 19 feet 5 inches (5.92 m), making it the UK's second-deepest canal lock. Just above the Deep Lock is another side pound as a reservoir for refilling the lock, followed by Wash House Lock. After a slightly longer pound is Abbey View Lock, beside which there is another pumping station and then, in quick succession, Pulteney Lock and Bath Top Lock.
  Above the Top Lock the canal passes through Sydney Gardens via two short tunnels and under two cast iron footbridges dating from 1800. Cleveland Tunnel is 173 feet (53 m) long and runs under Cleveland House, the former headquarters of the Kennet and Avon Canal Company and now a Grade II* listed building. A trap-door in the tunnel roof was used to pass paperwork between clerks above and bargees below. Many of the bridges over the canal are listed buildings.
  On the eastern outskirts of Bath a toll bridge near the George Inn links Bathampton to Batheaston, on the north bank of the canal. When the A4 Batheaston by-pass was built, the 22-acre (8.9 ha) Bathampton Meadow was created to provide additional flood relief. The resultant wet meadows and oxbow lake have proved attractive to a number of migrants; wading birds such as dunlin, ringed and little ringed plover, and green and common sandpiper are frequent visitors in spring and autumn. Sand martin and kingfisher have been seen regularly by the lake, and other migrants have included yellow wagtail, whinchat and hobby. The canal turns south into a valley between Bathampton Wood and Bathford Hill which includes Brown's Folly, a 99-acre (40 ha) biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest.
  In the Avon Valley to the east of Bath the classic geographical example of a valley with all four forms of ground transport is found: road, rail, river, canal. The canal passes the remains of a loading dock, once used for Bath Stone from the quarries on Bathampton Down, which was carried down a straight track to the canal over the Dry Arch rock bridge (demolished in 1958 to allow double-decker buses to use the A36). Next, the canal passes the waterwheel-powered Claverton Pumping Station, which pumped water from the River Avon into the canal. The building was completed in 1810 and the pump was working by 1813.
  On the eastern bank Warleigh Wood and Inwood are ash-wych elm and ash-maple dry woodland, which comes right down to the canal.
  The canal then crosses over the river and the Wessex Main Line railway at the Dundas Aqueduct, past Conkwell Wood, before recrossing the river and railway at the Avoncliff Aqueduct. At the western end of the Dundas Aqueduct it is joined by the remains of the Somerset Coal Canal, a short stretch of which has been restored to create the Brassknocker Basin. Excavations of the old stop lock showed that it was originally a broad 14-foot (4.3 m) lock that at some point was narrowed to 7 feet (2.1 m) by moving the lock wall. The Somerset Coal Canal was built around 1800 from basins at Paulton and Timsbury, giving access to London from the Somerset Coalfield, which at its peak contained 80 collieries.
  After the Avoncliff Aqueduct the canal passes through Barton Farm Country Park, past Gripwood Quarry and a 14th-century Grade II* listed tithe barn, 180 feet (55 m) long and 30 feet (9 m) wide, on its way into Bradford on Avon.
  The first sod for the Kennet and Avon Canal was turned in Bradford on Avon in 1794, and soon there were wharves above and below Bradford Lock. Further east, an aqueduct carries the canal over the River Biss.  There are locks at Semington and Seend, where water flows into the canal from the Summerham Brook, otherwise known as the Seend Feeder. In the 
caption: Dundas Aqueduct, built in 1805, lies between Bradford on Avon and Bath. Here the canal crosses high above the River Avon and the railway line (the narrowing is the aqueduct).
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