A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



survey, computed tliat thirty-five locks would be 

 necessary to render it navigable to Northampton.* 

 Fuller," who was a Northamptonshire man, re- 

 marked about the middle of the seventeenth 

 century tliat lessons in cheap transport could be 

 learnt from the Hollanders, but that the design 

 of improving the navigation of the Nene ' hath 

 always met with many back friends, as private 

 profit is (though a secret) a sworn enemy to the 

 general good.' In Queen Anne's reign one 

 obstacle in the way of improvement was the 

 protectionist feeling of Northampton, where it 

 was feared that barley and oats from Hunting- 

 don and Cambridge would be brought down in 

 such quantities by the better waterway as to 

 swamp the local market, while the riparian 

 owners dreaded an aggravation of the chronic 

 floods which were a curse to the Nene valley. 

 The questions involved seemed complex and not 

 easily solved, and Morton, with a proper sense of 

 the inherent wisdom of quarter sessions, was 

 willing to leave to the gentry of the shire the 

 ultimate decision. Apparently they determined 

 in favour of a measure of reform, and in I 7 13 

 (12 Anne) an Act of Parliament was obtained 

 for making navigable the Nene between North- 

 ampton and Peterborough, which was followed 

 by further amending Acts in 1724, 1756, and 

 1794. 



Coal, iron, timber, wine, and other goods 

 were brought as far as Thrapston by water in 

 1720, and efforts were made to continue the 

 improvement.'* About 1756 the Nene was 

 locked and deepened at Wellingborough, but 

 the efforts made do not seem to have been 

 always judicious. Some fifty years later it was 

 remarked * that ' a lock given doubtless from the 

 purest patriotic motives in 1760 by J. Spencer, 

 Esq., of Althorp, is so ill-placed that it turns 

 the navigation into a lower channel, where con- 

 tinuing the higher levels would have been pre- 

 ferable.' At the beginning of the last century 

 the Nene was still ' imperfectly navigable ' to 

 Northampton, and though Cowper, with the 

 peculiar licence allowed to poets, had apostro- 

 phized ' Nen's barge-laden wave,' the ordinary 

 cargo was a sorry affair, four tons or less, 

 principally coals and deals. The same period 

 saw two new undertakings to improve the 

 water-transport of the county. The Grand 

 Junction Canal was cut to join the tidal navi- 

 gation of the Thames with the principal inland 

 canals. It runs within the county from near 

 Wolverton in the south to Braunston in the 

 west, a distance of about twenty-five miles, and 

 joins the Oxford Canal ; branches connect with 

 Stony Stratford and Northampton. The other 

 important canal, the Grand Union, was designed 



' Morton, Na/. Hist, of Nortian/s, 5. 



~ JVorthies (1662), 301. 



' Norlhants N. and O. iv, 76, 77 



to connect the navigation of the Trent and 

 Soar with the Grand Junction and the Nene. 

 Starting from the Grand Junction Canal at 

 Braunston, it runs north to the Leicester canal, 

 and possesses a branch to Market Harborough. 



The works executed to improve the Nene 

 navigation at Wisbech had an indirect influence 

 on the condition of other parts of the river. In 

 spite of proposals fifty years before, a straight 

 cut was not made to improve the outfall of the 

 Nene below Wisbech until 1770, when it was 

 carried out to a length of i^- miles.' Between 

 1827 and 1830 Rennie and Telford prolonged this 

 cut to a total length of 7 miles, and great 

 complaints followed of disastrous floods. In 

 1852 another Act was passed for improving the 

 drainage and navigation of the Nene, charac- 

 terized by the ^artcrly Reviewer as * stringent 

 and powerful.'" Pamphleteers towards the close 

 of the fifth decade of the nineteenth century 

 were anything but satisfied with the measures 

 taken, and describe the condition of the river as 

 a frightful state of things. They also blamed 

 the conservatism of Wisbech, which refused to 

 give up the old channel through the town for a 

 straight cut, while the sudden and possibly in- 

 opportune destruction of the old Wisbech bridge, 

 which had previously throttled the stream, 

 produced all manner of unlooked-for results. 

 Already, however, Peterborough was becoming 

 a railway centre, and her citizens were luke- 

 warm in bettering their waterway, an improve- 

 ment which its advocates declared would ' open 

 up resources of wealth of which the petty agri- 

 cultural activity of her business at present is no 

 measure. Wharves crowded with warehouses 

 and timber yards might succeed the present in- 

 active river shore." In 1862 a proposal to 

 construct a submerged weir or dam and other 

 works near the Dog and Doublet Bridge was 

 sharply criticized by a pamphleteer, who saw a 

 sinister design on the part of his grace of 

 Bedford to monopolize the river, and who drew 

 a moving picture of the sufferings prepared for 

 Peterborough if the scheme were accepted. The 

 unfortunate city would have 'miasma" continu- 

 ally ventilating through her streets. Mothers 

 may be moaning over their sickly children, and 

 children over their dying parents, in order that 

 the crops of the Thorney estates may be healthy, 

 and that the cattle they rear may grow fat ' ! 



At the present time the traffic on the river is 

 entirely subsidiary to that of the railway, the 

 waterways of the shire are no longer main 

 avenues of transport for heavy goods. From 

 time to time the Nene Navigation Commissioners 

 carry out the necessary dredging to prevent the 



' Harcourt, Riven and Canals, i, 287. 

 ^ No. 201, Jan. 1857. 



'/• 



' Pitt, Gen. View of Agric. for Isortkants (1809), 233. 



' Remarks on the River Nene Improvement Scheme 



(1857)- 



® To U'kom does the Nene Belong? (1862), ii. 



290 



