The Romford Canal 6

Romford Canal - The final section The canal route passes through what is now known as The Chase nature reserve (Barking & Dagenham confusingly calls it Eastbrook End Park) After initially following the Beam River for a short distance above the railway at Elm Park, the canal changes route and follows the River Rom. The final three, or possibly even...

The Romford Canal 5

The canal route to the C2C/District railway crossing at Elm Park By these houses on Roosevelt Way, there is evidently a rise in the ground. It is totally plausible that a lock would have been built at this location. Traces of the canal are hard to find. It seems that between Rainham Road and Elm Park sections of the canal...

The Romford Canal 4

Romford Canal - From Rainham Road to Elm Park The canal heads slightly northeastwards towards Elm Park along a much narrower Beam ValleyThe crossing at Rainham Road (or is it Dagenham Road? There's often been some confusion over which name it should be since the stretch of road was converted into a dual carriageway.) The view looks slightly northeast along...

The Romford Canal 3

'The lock' to Rainham Road A depression is obvious here, although there doesn't seem to be any trace of the lock chamber walls now, perhaps the stones were taken away and used elsewhere. Who knows, but this old tree stump that rises vertically appears to indicate perhaps a hard standing that formed the earthworks constituting the sides of the chamber....

The Romford Canal 2

New Road to Beam Bridge lock Dagenham New Road bridge (the Beam Bridge) over the Beam River, once a busy main road but nowadays most traffic goes via the new A13 Choats Manor Way futher south. Excavations in 1972 adjacent to this site revealed remains of the Romford Canal although what sort of 'remains' it is not knownThe plot of...

Welcome to London Canals

London’s waterways history is comprehensively covered within these pages. Please use the site map as an alternative way to find your way round the website....

The lost route to Basingstoke.

The pages covering the Basingstoke canal's lost five miles beyond Greywell tunnel are on London Canals once again! The page links are as follows: Introduction...

Ringway – Basingstoke

Nearer to Basingstoke, the canal route remains quite traceable, but not for very long. After crossing the River Loddon (there was never an aqueduct at...

Basing House – Swing Bridge

Basing House bridge still stands and forms part of the driveway to Basing House. This section has probably been the most well known and publicised...

Rainbow Close – Musket Copse

After the M3, the canal sweeps round in a long arc, almost encircling The Hatch, to enter Basing in a north easterly direction. It passses...

Mapledurwell – Hatch

Past Frog Lane the canal passed through a small copse before emerging onto this field, which of course was bisected by the canal when it...

Penny Bridge – Frog Lane

The route continues from the west side of Up Nately and the end of the watered section of the Basingstoke canal at Penny bridge is...

The tunnel – Brick Kiln

Greywell Tunnel: Greywell tunnel is or was 1232 yards long and the second longest in southern England. It opened in 1794 and the last boat...

Greywell Hill

NOTE: This guide was written more than fifteen years ago! The route was last checked in 2009 and it seemed pretty much as it was....