Темза мен Медуэй каналы: тарихы мен құрылысы

The Thames and Medway Canal is a disused canal in Kent, south east England, also known as the Gravesend and Rochester Canal. It was originally some long and cut across the neck of the Hoo peninsula, linking the River Thames at Gravesend with the River Medway at Strood. The canal was first mooted in 1778 as a shortcut for military craft from Deptford and Woolwich Dockyards on the Thames to Chatham Dockyard on the Medway, avoiding the journey round the peninsula and through the Thames estuary. The canal was also intended to take commercial traffic between the two rivers.

The first practical attempt to build the canal began in 1799, when Ralph Dodd published a pamphlet and began to solicit investment for the scheme. Dodd's plan was for a 6 mile (10 km) canal with locks and basins, taking two years to build and costing £24,576, part of the cost to be defrayed by selling the excavated chalk as agricultural lime. Dodd was confident that the canal would be useful to the government but would also attract commercial vessels. In 1800 the canal company received the necessary Act of Parliament (39 & 40 Geo. 3. c. xxiii) and work began at the Gravesend end. The estimated cost had now risen to £57,433. From the Gravesend basin, the canal began with a straight section aligned with New Tavern Fort, Gravesend. By 1801 it ran 4 mile (6 km) to Higham. A new engineer, Ralph Walker, arrived and announced that the whole canal would cost significantly more than the revised estimate. Work halted, and by 1804 Dodd had probably left the project. Over the next few years, Walker suggested two new routes for the Higham to Strood stretch, for which Acts of Parliament were obtained and money raised. His second route was decided on but required a tunnel through the chalk hills; work on this did not start until 1819. The canal finally opened on 14 October 1824, by which time the Napoleonic wars were long over and the military need had greatly diminished. The canal had taken five Acts of Parliament and cost some £260,000.

The canal was wide and carried the Thames sailing barges common on both rivers. It was intended that the canal would be used for the transport of hops and other locally grown produce, but it was not a commercial success. It had locks at each end to protect the water level from tidal change, but the canal walls leaked and the water level dropped between every spring tide. A steam driven pumping station was built to rectify this. Complaints then came from barge owners that the tunnel was slow to use, so in 1830 it was shut for two months while an open air passing place was dug in the middle. This 100 yard long cutting divided the tunnel into a separate Higham tunnel and Strood tunnel. The canal tolls reflected these improvements, but if a boat missed the tide it would have to wait in the canal basin for longer than the journey round Hoo would have taken.

The remainder of the canal, between Higham and Gravesend, continued to be used until 1934. It suffered bomb damage during World War II, and some areas have been back filled or are choked with reed growth. The Strood canal basin, long orphaned by the loss of the tunnel, was back filled in 1986 and has now been built over. Since 1976 the canal has been in the hands of the Thames & Medway Canal Association (TMCA), which has dredged some areas. British Rail restored one of the swing bridges. The towpath has recently been renovated for use by pedestrians and cyclists. It now forms part of Route 1 of the National Cycle Network from Dover to John o' Groats. For walkers, it forms part of circular walks linked to the Saxon Shore Way. There are now plans to fully renovate the canal and make it a focal point of development in Gravesend, to benefit the town while meeting the Thames Gateway project's demands for housebuilding. In October 2004, the Gravesend canal basin was dredged, after which the lock gates into the Thames were renovated, enabling the basin to be used by boats from the river. The line of the canal has been protected from development since 1992.