Grand Union Canal
The Old Stratford to Buckingham Arm of The Grand Junction [later renamed Union] Canal was opened on 1st May 1801, and ran through the heart of Deanshanger. The village had two brick and stone built hump-backed bridges in High Street and Church Lane that crossed the canal, as well as a wooden lift bridge in The Hayes, another in the field of Dove House Farm that extended behind the Primary School and one also forded the canal on the outskirts of the village. The wooden lift bridges were operated by hand, pulling the counter-balanced large wooden beam to raise or lower the wooden-planked footbridge.
Village industries developed alongside the canal, timber, brick and coal business wharves were established and a wharf was built at the E & H Roberts Ltd iron foundry which also had a nearby a winding hole that allowed canal barges to turn.
The canal was used mainly by working boats and school records show that some of the children of the boat families attended Deanshanger School.
Photographs taken by Lewis Roberts show the canal being used for leisure activities in the early part of the 20th century, this era was also the heyday for The Iron Works Angling Association with many of its competition results reported in the local press.
In Deanshanger the canal was still being used by working boats into the 1920s, but by the 1960s, as with most of Britain’s inland waterways, the canal had become neglected, silted-up and full of rubbish. The Buckingham Arm was officially closed in 1964 which soon prompted local demands for removal of the two hump-backed bridges, considered to be dangerous thoroughfares on busy village access routes. The High Street bridge was the first to be demolished in August 1968 followed by the other approximately two years later.
Part of the canal’s route can still be seen on the outskirts of the village, where the hedgerow of the former towpath runs towards Buckingham. Restoration of the canal is being undertaken by volunteers of the Buckingham Canal Society which has managed to re-instate some sections of the old ‘Buckingham Arm’ at Cosgrove and Bourton Meadow.
