Glastonbury Canal - Background

Background

Glastonbury is situated in an area of low-lying land, through which rivers and drainage ditches (locally called "rhynes") run. There is evidence that the town was served by a canal connecting it to the river system in the Saxon period, and the waterways were later used by the monks who were located at Glastonbury Abbey, both for draining the land and for transport of produce. In the 1750s, the town became a spa town, when the waters of the Challice Well spring were thought to have medicinal properties, but this did not last for long, while the predominant wool and cloth industries declined as the mills of the north of England took the trade.

The area was hit by severe floods in 1794, as a result of which the Commissioners of Sewers obtained the Brue Drainage Act in 1801, which allowed them to improve the course of the River Brue by the straightening of major loops at Highbridge and East Huntspill, and to construct the North and South Drains, which collected water from the peat moorlands and channelled it into the lower River Brue. Under the terms of the Act, two small canals, called Galton's Canal and Brown's Canal, were built near the North Drain to serve peat extraction workings. The drainage works were not wholly successful in preventing flooding, and the Commissioners often failed to obtain the levies they required to finance their operations.