Saxilby Waterfront - the complicated history of who owns what on our canal side.


 As you read in my article last month, Saxilby Moorings has seen constant development over the centuries.

Following Richard Ellison of Thorne's renovation of the waterway in 1740, a turnpike road from Lincoln to Dunham and Worksop was opened in 1756. A wooden drawbridge was constructed over the canal, replaced by a swing bridge in 1823.

Skellingthorpe Road was immediately behind the bridge keepers house (pictured above) running alongside the canal to the Lindsey and Kesteven Chemical Works (now the Riverside Enterprise Park).

By the early 20th century, the roads had become the responsibility of the County Council, and by the 1930s, there was an urgent need to replace the swing bridge.

It was announced in 1935 that Lindsey County Council would begin work on the building of new bridges over the Fossdyke and railway for £47,000. The artist's drawing is shown below.

The work was expected to take two years and find employment for over 100.

The Lincolnshire Echo reported that it was 16 years since the first move was made by the County Council to improve the dangerous and troublesome swing bridge and level crossing in the village.

The bridges were opened on a very wet day in September 1937 by Lord Heneage, Chairman of the County Council.

Both the area of land between the footbridge and the railway line and the pathway between the footbridge and the steps leading to the A57 are still lined by hawthorn hedges that once bordered the roads. These areas are still owned by the County Council, although the flood bank now built on top of the old Skellingthorpe Road is the responsibility of the Environment Agency.

Bridge Street and the moorings were designated a conservation area in 1989A section within the conservation area report states that ‘much of the rest of the land to the south side [of the canal] was once farmed, and after the railway line was built [in 1848] was largely used as allotments.

The allotments and Bridge Keeper's Cottage

Its last use was by the British Waterways Board for the dumping of dredging spoil, but its future as a nature reserve now seems secure’.

The allotments were sold by auction to a private buyer some 20 years ago by British Rail.

Finally, over 30 years since the report, has the vision of a nature reserve on this site come to fruition.

The Parish Council has reached an agreement with the landowners to create ‘Saxilby Community Wood’; the project is led by Ross and Eleanor Smith of Saxilby Nature Project.

To date, junk has been removed from the woodland pool, a new path added to the existing ones, and information boards installed at the entrances.

Ivy will be cut back soon to stop it from smothering the ancient hawthorn and new trees planted.

Trees were planted on the roadside verges running along Bridge Street to commemorate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953; the County Council own the verges.

The concrete floodwall was built in 1963 to prevent flooding which had occurred during the 1940s and ‘50s, and which at times reached as far as the Village Hall.

As can be seen in the photograph below taken in November 2000, without the flood wall, the narrow boats would have been moored on Bridge Street!

Other features of the moorings are the footbridge and pipe bridge.

The pipe bridge carries Lincoln’s water supply from boreholes at Elkesley to Westgate water tower and is owned by Anglian Water.

Following a typhoid epidemic in 1904/5, the pipeline was constructed in 1910. The pipes cross the Trent on a special six-span steel bridge by the side of Dunham Bridge, and over the Fossdyke in Saxilby. The bridge was designed to allow the passage of working boats.

The footbridge, owned by West Lindsey District Council, was lifted into place on Sunday 22 November 1987. It was first constructed in 1883 by the Great Northern Railway over the East Coast Main Line at Newark. It was moved to Claypole, four miles south of Newark about 1938, where it remained until June 1987, when its removal was required because of British Rail's electrification programme. 

A street gala was held to mark the opening by Councillor Maurice French in March 1988.

Chris Hewis

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