Somerset Coal Canal

]] The Somerset coalfield had been producing coal since at least 1437, when the main source was a pit at Kilmersdon. By the early 1500s, additional pits had been opened at Clutton, High Littleton and Stratton-on-the-Fosse. There were also mines at Farrington Gurney, Midsomer Norton and Paulton by 1678, but no mining activity at Radstock. This changed in 1793, when an exploratory shaft found coal seams at varying depths below the village, which led to a flurry of new mines opening at Dunkerton, Foxcote, Priston, Timsbury and Writhlington. For all of the pits, transport was a major problem because of the poor state of the roads. The cost of getting the coal to market, and the threat of…

In May 1795, tenders were invited for the first sections to be built from Paulton to Hopyard, Camerton and from Radstock Bridge to Peglinch in Wellow. An estimate by the contractor Houghton & Son from Shropshire was accepted and work began. Part of the Paulton route was sufficiently advanced that five boats carried coal from Dunkerton to Camerton on 1 October 1798, some of which was then delivered by road to Bath. On the northern branch to Paulton, there was a difference in levels of 135 ft to be overcome, and this was concentrated at Combe Hay Locks. Rather than use a flight of around 23 conventional locks, the committee elected to use vertical boat lifts. Perkins and Palmer had seen…

When the Radstock branch was authorised, it was to terminate at Welton Hollow, near Midsomer Norton, where there was a colliery. However, when construction began, the first contract was for a 2 mi stretch from the Waldegrave Arms in Radstock to Peglinch (now known at Paglinch), starting around 0.7 mi to the east of Welton Hollow. Further contracts were issued to extend the canal eastwards to Wellow and Twinhoe, but tenders do not appear to have been advertised for the final section westwards. The first contract included the construction of a road bridge over the canal a very short distance from where it terminated, suggesting that the western extension was still proposed at the time. The…