Though not so extensive as many other parts of our inland navigation, the utility of the Grand Union Canal is commensurate with most. By means of its communication with the Grand Junction, the Oxford, and the Leicestershire and Northamptonshire Canals, it affords the means of conveying goods to and from many populous manufacturing districts and commercial towns, and secures a ready transit for their various productions along the above-named canals, the Grand Trunk, the Trent and Thames Rivers, and most of the navigations of Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire.
GRAND WESTERN CANAL.
36 George III. Cap. 46, Royal Assent 24th March, 1796.
51 George III. Cap. 168, Royal Assent 15th June, 1811.
52 George III. Cap. 16, Royal Assent 20th March, 1812.
THIS canal, which is designed to open a communication between the Severn and the Bristol Channel, thereby facilitating the of the country on its line with coals, timber, &c. as well as the export of farming produce, was sanctioned by the legislature in 1796, under an act, entitled, An Act for making a navigable Canal from the River Exe, near the town of Topsham, in the county of Devon, to the River Tone, near the town of Taunton, in the county of Somerset; and for cleansing and making navigable a certain Part of the said River Tone; and for making certain Cuts from the said Canal.
By this act the company were incorporated under the title of "Proprietors of the Grand Western Canal," and were authorized to make a line of navigation from the tideway in the River Exe, near Topsham, into the Tone River, in the parish of Bishop's Hull, in Somersetshire. They had also the power of making three collateral cuts or branches, viz, one in the parish of Cullompton; a second from the parish of Burlescombe to the parish of Tiverton; and a third in the parish of Wellington. They also were empowered to make two reservoirs in the valley of the River Culme, and two others in the valley of the Tone; from both which rivers they may take supplies of water. That part of the Tone which lies between Bishop's Hull and Taunton Bridge is, by this act, considered part of the canal, and vested in the proprietors thereof.
