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Selby Canal approaching the River Ouse
Paper House Bridge over the Selby Canal
The Selby Canal is a 6-mile (9.7 km) canal
with 2 locks which bypasses the lower reaches of the River Aire in Yorkshire, England, from the village of
West Haddlesey[1] to the
town of Selby where it joins the
River Ouse.[2]
An Act of
Parliament was obtained in 1774 by the Aire and Calder Navigation
Company, to head off another proposal for a 23-mile (37 km)
canal linking Leeds directly to Selby and thus bypassing the Aire
altogether. The company employed the engineers John Smeaton and William Jessop
and the canal was opened in 1776 at a cost of £20,000. As a result,
the town of Selby flourished, with a custom house which enabled
traffic to proceed straight to the North Sea without stopping at
Hull. However, the depth of the canal was only
3 ft 6 in and as cargoes increased the canal became
too shallow for the larger barges.
In 1826, a new and much larger cut was made from Knottingley through to
Goole and this spelled the end
of the prosperity of the canal. A new Act of Parliament was
obtained in 1828 to widen and deepen the canal and a new lock was
installed into the River Ouse, but traffic effectively ended with
the coming of the railway in 1870.
Today it is used almost entirely by leisure boats, forming an
easier route to York than the
alternatives via Goole or Trent Falls. It takes boats of length
24.4 m, beam 5.1 m, draught 1.2 m and air draught
2.45 m.
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