INDUSTRIES 



with the aid of other benefactors of the town, 

 built the bridges of Burford and Culhamford 

 and a fine causeway connecting them, making 

 Abingdon a considerable thoroughfare for 

 the traffic of merchandise to Cirencester and 

 the west. These bridges also benefited the 

 ancient town of Faringdon, the western traffic 

 being diverted and made to pass through it. 



In the eighteenth century there was a great 

 movement for the improvement of inland 

 navigation by the means of canals, and a very 

 complete system was inaugurated, which 

 opened many markets and wrought many 

 changes in the county. The Kennet was 

 rendered navigable from Newbury to Reading 

 by certain projectors under powers given 

 them by Parliament. 1 Much opposition was 

 at first encountered on the part of the cor- 

 poration of Reading, the proprietors of water- 

 works, mills and wharfs. But the scheme was 

 at length accomplished, and Mr. John Hore 

 was the engineer who also made the Kennet 

 and Avon Canal which passes through Hunger- 

 ford. Between Reading and Newbury he 

 constructed twenty locks, and a wharf was 

 made at Aldermaston. The trade of both 

 Reading and Newbury was greatly increased 

 by this means of communication with the 

 west. ' The wharf at Newbury became the 

 dep6t of a very extensive inland carrying 

 trade to London and all parts of the west of 

 England, and was provided with a bason or 

 wet-dock, where ten of the largest barges 

 might load or unload with the greatest 

 facility, which gave quite a maritime and 

 commercial appearance to the place, and 

 bespoke the extent of its trade.' 2 Till a late 

 period Reading was very deficient in the 

 possession of large and convenient wharfs, 

 without which the advantages arising from 

 good water-ways are considerably decreased 

 in value. There were few places for landing 

 goods, except such as belonged to the Crown- 

 lands, and for the use of them, being let to an 

 under-tenant, a heavy toll was demanded. 

 There was at one time a ' common landing 

 place ' near High Bridge, but the Corporation 

 acquired the right of buying wharfage dues. 

 A commodious wharf and dock were however 

 completed in i828, 3 and were of much 

 advantage to the trade of the town. 



In the north of the county an important 

 engineering work greatly improved the means 



* Statute I Geo. I. cap. 24, 7 Geo. I. cap. 28 

 and 3 George II. cap. 25. Money, Hist, of New- 

 bury, p. 367. 



2 Ibid. p. 368, andMavor, Agriculture of Berks, 

 p. 440. 



3 Doran, Hist, of Reading, p. 236, 



of traffic. In 1730 a canal was formed by 

 Act of Parliament from Framilode on the 

 Severn to Walbridge near Stroud, and called 

 the Stroudwater Canal. In 1789 this canal 

 was connected with the Thames and made to 

 pass through Sapperton to Lechlade, and thus 

 to connect the great river with the Severn. 

 Another canal, the Wilts and Berks, com- 

 menced in 1793 under the direction of Mr. 

 Whitworth, runs from Abingdon past Wan- 

 tage to Semington in Wilts, where it joins the 

 Kennet and Avon Canal. No less important 

 to Berkshire was the Oxfordshire Canal, which 

 connects London, Reading and Windsor with 

 Birmingham and the Midlands, constructed 

 in 1790. This water-way brought Berkshire 

 into touch with one of the great manufactur- 

 ing centres of England, and was especially 

 valuable in providing a much cheaper supply 

 of coal. Previous to its construction all the 

 coal supply came from London. At the end 

 of the eighteenth century we see the county 

 provided with an admirable system of water 

 communication, the construction of which 

 showed much industrial enterprise and en- 

 tailed the expenditure of vast sums of money. 

 The extraordinary advance of science and the 

 introduction of railways and steam power 

 were destined to produce startling changes in 

 the near future. We may note here that 

 Wantage has the distinction of being the first 

 place in England where a steam tramway 

 has been made. This was constructed to 

 connect the town with Wantage Road 

 Station on the Great Western Railway, a 

 distance of about two miles. An Act of 

 Parliament was obtained in 1874 and a 

 company formed ; at first only horse power 

 was used, but two years later steam traction 

 was introduced : one of the results was the 

 revolution of the coal trade of the town, the 

 supply of which for"nearly a century had been 

 dependent upon the canal, the coal being 

 brought from the Somerset and Gloucester- 

 shire coalfields. The new steam tramway 

 enabled the townspeople to receive trucks 

 from all parts of the Midlands. 4 Before we 

 turn over a new page of the industrial history 

 of Berkshire it may be well to record the rise, 

 progress and decay of certain trades which 

 once flourished in the county, and to note 

 the kind of goods which were transported 

 along their great water-ways. 



The extensive range of down-land on the 

 chalk hills furnishes excellent pasturage for 

 sheep, which formerly laid the foundations of 

 the pre-eminence of Berkshire as a rich cloth- 

 making county. Abingdon, Reading and 



377 



Gibbons, ffantage, Past and Present, p. 98. 



48 



