The Wey navigation in its present form connects Guildford with the Thames at Weybridge, but actually started with the improvement of the course of the Wey where it passed though the land of Sir Richard Weston (in the area of Send) as early as 1618.  To take matters further, an Act of Parliament was needed, and this took 30 years to secure, Cromwell supporting the Act “Making Navigable the River Wye” in 1651.

The stretch from Guildford to Weybridge was completed in 1653, 19½ miles of waterway of which 9 were man made, with 12 locks to accommodate a fall of 68 feet all built in two years despite the objections of mill owners who did not want their power source interfered with.  (A legal complication arose on the restoration of the monarchy when the original Act was declared invalid, necessitating another in 1671.)

Sadly the final cost significantly exceeded budget, and so the canal company started operations with a rather serious financial position, a situation which did not really improve until the Stevens family took over the management of the navigation in the 1840s, beginning a long association in which the third generation became the owners of the navigation and the fourth handed it over to its present owners the National Trust in 1964.

The Godalming Navigation, 4½ miles, of which 1½ man made, with 4 locks for its 32ft fall into Guildford, was completed in 1764.  The two waterways were separate businesses, (despite both eventually coming under the management of the Stevens family) the Godalming arm being controlled by Commissioners who were local landowners. The Commissioners handed it over to the Corporation of Guildford, who fairly smartly handed it on to the National Trust in 1968, thus bringing the two into common ownership for the first time.

Cargoes carried were quite varied: corn, flour, timber, bark (for tanning), rags (for paper making), coal, chalk, barrel hoops, sugar, oil cake, fertilizer, and even gunpowder from the powder mills at Chilworth.

The opening of the Basingstoke Canal in 1796 (joining the Wey at New Haw) boosted activity on the Wey, and the opening of the Wey and Arun (joining the Godalming near Shalford) helped both.  The Wey and Arun opened in 1816, providing a direct water route from London to Portsmouth without having to brave the French in the Channel, but since Wellington had given the French something of a decisive seeing-to the previous year, the Navy made very little use of it.

While the Godalming had ceased to carry commercial cargoes by 1950, the Wey held out until 1969, though there was a brief flurry of activity of carriage between Coxes (flour) Mill (between Weybridge and New Haw) and Tilbury in the early 1980s.

The greater part of these two waterways is rural in the extreme; it is really only passing through Guildford that any significant time is spent in an urban environment.  None of the locks is mechanised, and only the lock at the junction with the Thames is manned.

At Dapdune Wharf in Guildford (behind the county cricket ground) the former barge-building yard operated by the Stevens family has been turned into a visitor centre, one of their barges having been fitted out to show what life was like for a bargee, and displays in former workshops and storerooms add further background to the canal.  Boat trips into the centre of Guildford are available in the summer.  In the centre of Guildford, at the point where the two navigations meet, stands a treadmill-operated crane at Town Wharf.

Between them the two navigations have around 2000 resident vessels, and manage about 450 moorings.  Narrow boats can be hired in Guildford as well as day boats (powered and unpowered) in both Guildford and Godalming.  Summer day and evening cruises operate from Guildford.

For the practically minded, there are 34 pubs either on or within reasonable walking distance of the canal, and Byfleet, Guildford and Godalming railway stations are within easy reach.

We are grateful to Stuart Wilkinson for this entry