SJ9422 : Stafford Riverway Link restoration near Baswich
taken 8 years ago, near to Weeping Cross, Staffordshire, England
The Stafford Riverway Link is a new name for the former Stafford Branch Canal or River Sow Navigation which used to link the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal at Baswich with the town centre of Stafford. A restoration project plans to reconstruct the link "for community benefit".
The link consisted of a short section of canal branching off the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal near St Thomas Bridge 101. This led via a basin and an aqueduct over a drainage channel and into St Thomas Lock, then down into the River Sow. From here the river course was straightened and made navigable for about a mile and a half to the terminus at a basin near Green Bridge in Stafford.
The canal opened in 1772, the River Sow Navigation in 1816. It ceased operations in the 1920s.
Information from the IWA here: Link
Note: Immediately below the lock now is the River Penk, which was diverted along the former Deepmore drainage ditch during flood control activities in the 1970s, so no longer joins the Sow at its original confluence SJ94272281. It now does so 300 metres further east at SJ94572287.