and so the canal cannot have been used before that, although the railway had been sold in 1814. Although it used the river, much of the channel was a new cut, designed to eliminate a series of sharp bends which remained as oxbow lakes to the south of the new route and were still clearly visible on maps in 1938.

The canal was privately built, as all the land through which it ran was owned by Sir George William Jerningham, later Lord Stafford. A lease for its use