you join us today in search of quite a rare phenomenon a canal in the south of england
in fact it's not even a canal it's a navigation so a navigation being an already formed river
but you just alter it into something that can carry barges boats vessels either by slightly
diverting its course or perhaps making the cut of the river a little bit deeper
hi i just looking at the houses they're amazing.
Canals played a significant role in the industrial revolution
by the simple act of moving goods from a to b more efficiently than had ever gone before
the itching navigation connected southampton to winchester and in itself tells a fascinating story
but it's that story that also helps us answer the question why are there very few canals in
the south of england the curious history of this navigation starts way back in 1189 with
stories from the reign of king john a man called godfrey delucy the bishop of winchester it's
claimed was responsible for making the itching navigable as far back as also around 8 miles to
the east of winchester the story goes that he built the old pond here to head up the canal
that's not completely out there theory but it's more likely the pond was built for fishing
our journey started here in the south of winchester on black bridge
this is the site of the northernmost point of the navigation
and the likely point of the wharf being the center island here in front of us
we were now to head south on a 10 mile journey on this southern section of the itching way
the first stop being the area around saint Catherine's hill
further attempts were made over the centuries to improve the navigation of the river
including in Edward I time despite this there was not a tangible shred of evidence left
to this day the river was shaped by a human prior to the navigation's most important date
and that date was 1665. now we're just walking along um a navigable bit of the itching the
engine navigation just south of winchester winters is in the uh the background there and we've just
noted rebecca just noticed um all these bits of wood in the water which was presumably little
jetties and or places where they used to tie their boats yeah i guess so i wonder how old they are
yeah they're not very i mean they're not out of the water they're underneath the water yeah
yeah they're sticking up and they're definitely not trees already literally bits of wood
so the 1665 act plan to make this river navigable for boats and barges and vessels alike
but of course you can't just dig out the river and hope that it becomes a little bit
deeper you've only got 25 meters until you get down to southampton at sea level so they plan
to use a couple of ingenious ideas to make this navigable for boats and barges and vessels alike
a river naturally meanders through the landscape so by taking shortcuts in its course
you can in theory increase the water in that given section
of course that's okay in principle but you need something else you need one of these
this is a site of compton lock and similar to its more modern versions of locks on canals it did
exactly the same job it had enough water in each section but you could keep a barge or a vessel
afloat now what's staggering about all of this is this 11 mile navigation took 50 years to build
throughout the history of the the navigation it had various acts which catered for a lot
of different things and some of those were sort of minor petty disputes if you will
so for example what if two barges met either side of a lock who had priority
now the fact that there were only six barges on the whole of this 11
mile navigation told you how petty it was they even placed markers either side or
certainly on the southern side of the locks to indicate if you got to one of those first
you had priority especially if you were coming upwards heading north towards winchester and
some of the other disputes looked at the use of the actual water itself so for example there were
mills all the way along here there was meadows which is what we're walking across right now
and the meadows would need water for irrigation certainly in the spring and the summer months
well so you can't really you can't really see it that well but just between
that's me just between there is shawford's single gate so presumably that wasn't a lock
as such and you can see the brickwork in there you can see a couple of um the old bits of wood
in the yeah the beams the beams in the water can't you as well you can see better little bits in yes
um that wasn't actually a lock as such it was a single gate to stem the flow of water to a degree
yeah well onwards now to the next lock
so the point about the six barges operating on this navigation really
highlights the issue it had the Napoleonic wars were in full flow
and commercial traffic was being pushed inland and yet they still only operated six barges
now it also is highlighted by the fact that the people of southampton didn't really ever pay any
attention to this navigation the flow of traffic was very unbalanced there was a lot of coal
heading north to winchester but hardly anything coming from winchester back to southampton
the napoleonic wars once again gave rise to the idea that itching navigation should be connected
to the canal up at basingstoke stoke at the very least but the significant cost of
doing so combined with a lack of traffic at the time then the idea was never more than an idea
all along the itching today we've seen steps uh sort of pre-built fairly modern built steps
down into the itching we've seen people use them for swimming even now we're at the end of march
and it's it's blooming cold right and you think cardio mad but actually you wonder how how many
years and decades and centuries that's going on for because people have been using the itching
for centuries instead of millennia and yeah you know now we're still seeing people use it today
which is great that's the whole point i guess isn't it really yeah but cold but cold it's not
that cold today though is it it would be in there yeah yeah i get that i'll get that completely
so we're just coming up to with me lock now one of the many locks on this navigation
which has now been turned into either sluice gates or weirs but you can still see the remains
of the lock and and how they narrowed the water through here and the difference in the height
and of course just to our left of that way is pretty
much the reason for the demise of this navigation the coming of the railways
so in 1840 london and southwestern railway opened up their main line between southampton and london
and almost overnight you could travel between those two locations an average speed of around 42
miles an hour that was probably 10 times that you could do on the rich in navigation now within 30
years commercial traffic had pretty much ceased uh on the navigation itself
which shows you how quickly the railways took over this part of the country
so we're here by this stretch of the itching navigation which has got a section of the river
itching close to it and about 10 feet below us now the story of the itching navigation really
sums up for me while there are a lack of canals in southern england the lack of industrial towns
the lack of coal beneath our feet all gave rise to a lack of traffic on those barges and vessels
and of course what that meant was there was no real join up with the rest of the canal network in
the midlands in the north of england and of course perhaps one of the only exceptions to that rule
is of course the kennet and Avon canal one surviving relic of that industrial transport era
so from the banks of the itching navigation or the river or both
um we bid you farewell this has been our first um navigation yes it has that's why you keep
trying to say canal i know you try to get canal and river and it's navigation it's been
fun i've learned a heck of a lot in trying to learn about this canal slash navigation
yeah it's a lot of history behind it like a lot of way back history as well not just like
more modern also trying to film with the dude in the background the dude in the background keeps on
banging something you're trying to feel something in his garden bang bang anyway um thanks for
watching we'll see you next week when we're hopefully gonna slowly ease out of lockdown
and we can travel to places like here yes a bit further a bit further afield and we can
look at different things and bring you different exciting content we're really quite excited about
that we are very so stay tuned and we'll have some corkers coming up in the next few weeks
you