River Improvement 131 



rivers and to straighten their courses, but to construct new 

 channels, to set up locks, weirs, etc., to provide towing-paths, 

 and to dig new channels where required. This last-mentioned 

 proposal constituted, as will be seen later on, the idea that led 

 up to the eventual transition from navigable rivers to artificial 

 canals, the new " cuts " on the former being the connecting 

 link between the two. 



The Wye was found to be an exceptionally difficult stream 

 to tame and control, and Sandys' attempt to make it navigable 

 by locks and weirs on the pound-lock system was a failure. 

 The scheme was, however, afterwards carried through on 

 different lines ; and in summing up the results John Lloyd, 

 Junr., says in " Papers Relating to the History and Navi- 

 gation of the Rivers Wye and Lugg " (1873) : 



" Although, through the uncertainty of its stream, the Wye 

 was never brought to answer the purpose of a regular con- 

 veyance, its navigation has proved of great service throughout 

 the county of Hereford. Throughout the last 1 century most 

 of the coal consumed in Hereford and its neighbourhood was 

 brought up in barges after a flood. Various other heavy 

 articles, such as grocery, wines and spirits, having been first 

 conveyed from Bristol to Brockweir in larger vessels, were 

 carried up thence in barges at a much easier rate than by land 

 carriage. In return the boats were freighted with the valuable 

 oak timber, bark, cider, wheat, flour and other produce of the 

 county. The opening of the towing-path for horses by the 

 Act of 1809 gave a further impetus to navigation, and es- 

 pecially to the trade in coal from Lidbrook, and while every 

 river-side village could boast of its quay and its barge, the 

 quay walls at Hereford were thronged with loading and un- 

 loading barges. . . . 



" Since the opening of the Hereford, Ross and Gloucester 

 Railway, in 1855, and the consequent dissolution of the 

 Towing-path Company, nearly all navigation on the Wye 

 above Monmouth has ceased." 



Francis Mathew addressed, in 1655, to Oliver Cromwell, 

 " Lord Protector of the Commonwealth," a powerful argument 

 in favour of " The Opening of Rivers for Navigation," the 

 benefit thereof which he sought to show being, as his title-page 

 said, " exemplified by the Two Avons of Salisbury and Bristol, 

 1 Eighteenth. 



