Grand Union Canal

The Cosgrove to Buckingham Arm of The Grand Junction [later renamed Union] Canal was opened on 1st May 1801 and wound its way through the heart of Deanshanger. Two brick and stone humped-back bridges built in High Street and Church Lane crossed the water, and pedestrian wooden lift-bridges were sited on The Hayes, in the field of Dove House Farm that extended behind the Primary School and another one that forded the canal on the outskirts of the village towards Old Stratford. The wooden lift-bridges were operated by hand, pulling on the counter-balanced large wooden beam raised or lowered the wooden-plank footbridge across the water.

Village industries grew up along the canal, including timber, brick and coal businesses. A wharf was built at the E & H Roberts Ltd iron foundry where a nearby winding-hole allowed canal barges to turn. The canal was mainly used by working boats and Deanshanger School Admission Registers record that some of the children of the boat families attended Deanshanger School.

Images taken by village photographer, Lewis Roberts, in the early 20th century show the canal was also used for leisure activities such as boating and fishing, many children learned to swim in it and people ice-skated on the frozen water in winter.

The canal in Deanshanger was still being used by working boats into the late 1920s, but by the 1960s it 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 humped-back bridges, considered to be dangerous thoroughfares on busy village access roads. 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 can still be seen in one part of the village off Hayes Road and the former route of the towpath can be detected in the hedgerows on the outskirts of the village running towards Buckingham. Restoration of parts 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. The Buckingham Canal Society have produced an Interactive Map of the canals route.

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