No canal was ever built in Dorset although the Dorset and Somerset Canal was planned in the late 18th century from the Kennet and Avon Canal near Bradford to the Stour, just below Shillingstone. A branch was to run from Frome to the Somerset coalfield and part of this was actually made although it never opened.
The proposed canal was to join the Kennet and Avon Canal near Bradford in Somerset, pass to the east of Wincanton, enter Dorset to the east of Stalbridge and broadly follow the course of the river Stour to Join it at Gains Cross, just to the east of Shillingstone. From here the Stour was, or could be made, navigable to barges to Christchurch Harbour. A branch of the canal was to be built from Frome to the Somerset coalfield to bring the coal cheaply to Dorset.
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The Frome section of the canal used ingenious balance lifts rather than the more usual series of locks. |
The necessary Act of Parliament was obtained in 1796 but by this time it was too late. The canal boom had subsided and was, indeed, collapsing, and the company could not raise the capital which it needed. The Frome branch of the canal was started in the hope that it might raise sufficient revenues to keep the scheme alive until better times. In the event, even this section was never completed or used.
Although the canal would have proved very useful to the parts of the county through which it passed, particularly in providing cheap coals some half a century before the arrival of the railways, it could not have been profitable had it been completed - canals through rural areas never did unless they served large towns or industrial areas.
