PicoMicroYacht to discover London's Lost Route to the Sea

As the winter passes, plans are being made for PicoMicroYacht's next adventures. This year it includes discovering one of  England's most picturesque waterways.

The River Thames is the UKs most iconic river, passing through the nation's capital, London. Although it provides a natural link with the sea through the Thames Estuary, in the 18th and 19th Century it was realised there could be a much shorter route from London to the South Coast of England using rivers and canals, this being London's Lost Route to the Sea.

The barge route as illustrated in P A L Vine's London's Lost Route to the Sea

The full route starts at Tower Bridge in London and passes up the Thames to Weybridge turning left into the River Wey. It then goes beyond Guildford until it reaches a small gunpowder wharf at Shalford, continuing along the Wey and Arun Canal to the river Arun near Pulborough. This strongly tidal river helped transport barges down through Sussex to Littlehampton on the South Coast. A subsidiary canal was also used to take traffic to Portsmouth, a large UK naval centre. 

Ford Lock on the Portsmouth and Arundel Canal from a water colour by W. H. Mason

According to Paul Vine's London's Lost Route to the Sea, when the Wey and Arun canal became fully operational in 1823  it was possible to travel from London to the South Coast in three days. The canal came in over budget and was expensive to maintain, eventually abandoned due to competition from the railway making it commercially not viable. The canal decayed until the mid 20th Century when enthusiasts have started restoring it in portions, their vision to re-establish it completely.

Approaching Tower Bridge on 6th February at the start of the voyage

PicoMicroYacht has already started to discover the lost route by setting off from Greenwich in London and reaching Putney (I will be blogging this journey in the next post). The voyage will involve rowing up the river Wey to the Shalford Gunpowder wharf and then, because the canal is not in full operation, running 20 miles to Pullborough, stopping off to explore the parts of the canal that have been opened. 

The Fourdaysrunning event, taking the CASPA runners along the seven sisters and then past Beachy Head

PicoMicroYacht will go down the Arun to Littlehampton and enter the English Channel, turning left and going up-channel to Eastbourne. The aim is to join the FourDaysRunning group, who are doing their sponsored run in aid of  the CASPA charity. They will be going from Arundel to Eastbourne along the South Coast. As they run 100k over the South Downs and along cliffs and sea promenades, PicoMicroYacht should have the easy task of rowing up the English Channel with the prevailing south westerly wind.

The Wey and Arun canal history is described in this short video: