BASINGSTOKE CANAL PHOTO GUIDE

BROOKWOOD - PIRBRIGHT

The rebuilt Brookwood (or Connaught) Bridge

The scene at Brookwood is so different from over 27 years ago when I first came here and photographed a motley collection of vehicles parked on the towpath, some of whose boots were actually sticking out over the lock chamber itself. The towpath has been on the south side of the canal since St. Johns, and affects a change to the other side at Brookwood. The road bridge is sometimes known as Connaught. The was never a towpath under the bridge and like other locations on the Basingstoke one had to cross the main road to gain the next section of towpath. As of 2002 there has been a towpath under Brookwood Bridge (below)

Brookwoood bottom lock in 1981

    
Left - locks 12 & 13. Right - No. 14

. From the top of the Brookwood flight it is a short walk to the Toll bridge. The canal runs round the back of Brookwood itself, but easy access to the nearby station (and the famous cemetery) can be made from Toll bridge. This is the name given in the Basingstoke Canal - A Towpath Walk. But nowdays its more likely to be called Sheets Heath bridge, after the nearby road that leads from the canal to Brookwood village and station.

Sheets Heath (or Toll) footbridge

Pirbright Bridge and lock 15

Notice on Lock 15's gate

Pirbright lock (no.15) is be said to be the start of the long flight to the top of Deepcut, although that flight officially begins just a short distance away at lock 16. Many of the bridges on the canal have oval plaques dating the year of construction (usually 1792) and the year of rebuilding. Pirbright bridge is a much later structure as the plaque (bottom) explains. What is interesting here is the description pertaining to the Basingstoke and Aldershot Canal Company. This was one of a number of companies that were established during the canal's latter commercial days in the first half of the twentieth century with the express purpose of ensuring a revival in trading on the canal. Many years ago little girl had a dream - and that was that one day she would actually own the canal. This little girl was none other than Joan Marshall, who became the canal's owner in 1949, and General Manager of one of these companies, known as the New Basingstoke Canal Co Ltd. It is said that without her, the Basingstoke Canal would have not survived into the 1960's, when the Surrey and Hampshire Canal Society was set up to campaign for restoration. Above Pirbright lock one can see the brick butress, which exist only on the towpath side now) of the long gone bridge over the canal of the erstwhile Bisley Camp Railway (see old picture below.)This railway closed in 1952, but the bridge stood until demolition in 1979.

Pirbright Lock - April 2004


Coloured postcard Pirbright lock and railway bridge pre 1914

BASINGSTOKE CANAL PHOTO GUIDE:

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