Swarkestone

[Heartland]

Baron Art, had on display a painting by Henry Charles Fox, at the NEC this weekend (Antiques Fair) which shows the River Trent at Swarkestone, the Church and what appears to be a Trent Boat moored across the river from the Church. I understand the painting was from the 1920's, but could it depict a scene a century previous. Traffic on the Upper Trent is a complicated subject, but boats could pass down the Derby Canal to the Trent during the early years of the 19th Century.

 

Ray Shill

[Laurence Hogg]

Baron Art, had on display a painting by Henry Charles Fox, at the NEC this weekend (Antiques Fair) which shows the River Trent at Swarkestone, the Church and what appears to be a Trent Boat moored across the river from the Church. I understand the painting was from the 1920's, but could it depict a scene a century previous. Traffic on the Upper Trent is a complicated subject, but boats could pass down the Derby Canal to the Trent during the early years of the 19th Century.

 

Ray Shill

Theres quite a bit to be found at Swarkestone, the locks from the T&M which were the Derby canal branch can be detected by the change of level in the fields, in the village itself a bridge remains and the final lock into the Trent is in a garden next to the pub. There is an isolated warehouse near Repton, the remains a lock just north of Burton near a mill complex which has wharfage. Once in Burton wharfage is obvious and the cut which led to the Bond end canal. Navigation past Burton may well have been acheived as there are several places where evidence suggest it. So I suspect even in 1920 Swarkestone may have been reachable on the Trent, you could almost still get there today if you dared.

[Heartland]

The Fox painting is a little too accurate to dismiss as artistic licence. It appears to show St James Church, the river and a Trent Boat. A lock on the Trent & Mersey was later provided east of Swarkestone for boats to travel down to Kings Mill with Gypsum, I believe. Perhaps Trent Boats also travelled north along the River to Swarkestone.

 

Ray Shill

[hughc]

There is the remains of a lock and channel in woodland opposite Kings Mill just down the lane from Weston lock. I had thought that gypsum was transferred from the canal to Trent boats using a river backwater at Weston Cliff. This I think was accomplished by a chute from the canal down to the river. I am unaware of any lock being used. Do you know the site of this? There is a significant difference in levels. The restoration of the lock at Kings Mill would be a simple operation and if the new bridge under the A50 was cleaned out and some minor adjustment to levels was carried out that would go a long way to restoring river navigation to Burton. IIRC John Baylis carried out a survey of the channel as far as Burton some years ago.There is of course a well attested Roman/Viking age 'harbour' close to Swarkestone which served the Mercian capital at Repton so there is a long history of navigation on the Upper Trent. Regards, HughC.

[Heartland]

Actually One of the Pearson guides shows a lock linking Trent with T& M near Weston. However all the maps I have looked at show a wharf serving both canal and River.

Looking at paintings can be useful, but has issues. In the same show Cambridge Fine Art had a painting by Walter Stuart Lloyd which shows what appears to be narrowboat (but no horse) approaching Canterbury Cathedral along the River Stour!

 

Ray Shill