The Lancaster Canal

For more than a century a working canal ran through the western edge of Natland parish. The Lancaster Canal was known locally as the "Black and White Canal" after its two main cargoes: coal carried north from the Lancashire coalfields, and limestone carried south from Cumbria. Its bed is dry through Natland today, but the towpath is still a public footpath, and three of the stone bridges that cross it carry the village's name.

Building the canal

The canal was authorised by the Westmoreland Canals Act, which received royal assent on 11 June 1792. John Rennie was appointed engineer the following month. The main line from Preston to Tewitfield opened in 1797, but the final stretch on to Kendal was put off for years. Work did not start until 1813, and the bridges, aqueduct and tunnel on the Natland side were built in 1817–18 under William Crosley Jr.

The canal opened through to Kendal on 18 June 1819 with a flotilla of boats, followed by a dinner and ball at Kendal Town Hall. The stretch from Tewitfield up to Kendal became known as the Northern Reaches, about 14 miles of canal including a flight of eight locks at Tewitfield.

The canal through Natland

South of the terminus at Kendal Canal Head, the canal ran past the west side of the village towards Sedgwick. At least three of the bridges on this stretch, Nos. 184, 182 and 181, were built in 1818 by William Crosley Jr to the same plain design, a single elliptical stone arch.

Bridges on the Natland stretch, north to south
No. Bridge From Kendal Canal Head Notes
184 Natland Mill Beck Lane Bridge about 1¼ miles Grade II listed (it lies in Kendal parish). Restored at a cost of £20,000, with Kendal Civic Society as a major funder.
183 Natland Road Bridge about 1½ miles Marks the end of Phase 1 of the restoration plan (see below).
182 Natland Hall Bridge about 2¼ miles Grade II listed, in Natland parish.
181 Crowpark Bridge about 2½ miles Grade II listed, in Natland parish. Carries Hawes Lane.

Sedgwick and Hincaster

Beyond Natland the canal crossed the main street of Sedgwick on the Sedgwick Aqueduct. Built in limestone in 1818, it has a single skewed arch, massive curved retaining walls and a flight of stone steps. It is Grade II listed and a scheduled monument.

A little further south is Hincaster Tunnel, the only tunnel on the canal, about 5 km (3 miles) south of the village. It is 378 yards (346 m) long (some sources round this to 380 or "about 400" yards) and is lined with roughly four million bricks. It was completed at the end of 1817. The tunnel has no towpath, so horses were led over the hill on a separate horse path while the boats were hauled through, according to the Canal & River Trust by a rope fixed along one wall. The tunnel portals are Grade II listed and the horse path is itself a scheduled monument.

The canal also served the Sedgwick gunpowder works, owned by the Wakefield family of Kendal. John Wakefield sat on the canal company's committee. The works ran until 1935.

What the canal carried

Besides coal and limestone, boats carried grain, timber, potatoes and slate. Kendal's gas works, built in 1824 on land bought from the canal company, had no railway connection and took 6,500–7,500 tons of coal a year by water.

The packet boats

Passengers could travel by canal too. A packet-boat service ran between Preston and Lancaster from 1798 and was extended to Kendal on 1 May 1820. The journey took about 14 hours, leaving Kendal at 6am and reaching Preston at 8pm.

From 1833 the canal company ran faster "swift" packet boats, among them the Waterwitch, Swallow and Swiftsure. Their horses were changed every four miles and the boats reached about 10 mph. Sources give the Kendal–Preston time as anything from seven to ten hours. The locks at Tewitfield could not be hurried, so passengers walked up the flight and boarded a second boat at the top. The swift packets stopped on 22 September 1846, when the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway reached Kendal.

Decline and closure

The railways soon owned the canal. It was leased to the London and North Western Railway in 1864, bought outright in 1885, and passed to the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in 1923. The northern end closed in stages:

  • 1939 — an Act authorised closing the last half-mile into Kendal.
  • 1941–42 — the section north of the gas works was disused and closed because of leakage.
  • 1944 — the gas works switched its coal to road, and through traffic to Kendal ended.
  • 1947 — the last commercial cargo was carried anywhere on the canal.
  • 1961 — about 5¾ miles from Stainton to Kendal, including the Natland stretch, was formally closed and drained. Water had been leaking away through the limestone bed. The last two miles in Kendal were filled in.
  • 1960s — the M6 motorway was built across the line of the canal, cutting it with culverts and leaving the Northern Reaches isolated from the rest of the network at Tewitfield. The A590 near Kendal cut it again.

The canal today

Through Natland the canal bed is dry and partly filled in, but its line is easy to follow. The towpath is a public footpath, and the bridges above still stand.

The Lancaster Canal Trust was founded in December 1963 to campaign for restoration. The canal is still in water as far north as just beyond Stainton Aqueduct, and the Trust runs a trip boat, also named Waterwitch, between Crooklands and Stainton. The Stainton Aqueduct was damaged by Storm Desmond in December 2015. It was repaired with £1.5 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund and reopened in 2021. Volunteers have since been relining and rewatering the next stretch north.

The long-term plan is to restore the Northern Reaches all the way to Kendal. Natland sits right at the hinge of that plan: Phase 1 would restore the canal from Kendal Canal Head to Natland Road, and Phase 2 would take it on from Natland Road to Crooklands. Progress depends on funding and on solving the crossings of the M6 and A590. For the latest news, see the Lancaster Canal Trust.

Sources

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