Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation

The Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation runs through a largely unspoilt part of rural Essex with a footpath along its full length.  The waterway passes highlights such as the lock at Paper Mill and All Saints Church in Ulting, joining the sea at Heybridge.

Heybridge, rather than the sea port of Maldon, is the point where the waterway enters the sea as local landowners and other port interests objected to the construction of the Navigation.  They feared it would bring a loss of trade so the community around Heybridge Basin grew following the waterway construction work in the 1790s.  Previously the area had been entirely rural farmland.

Heybridge developed enormously after the opening of the navigation especially with William Bentall’s iron works beside the navigation in about 1811, where iron ore, coal and timber could be easily imported. The business prospered and Heybridge grew from 368 people in 1801 to 1177 in 1841. By 1900 the works covered 13.25 acres. At the beginning of the straight cut beyond Wave Bridge is Bentall’s warehouse, built in 1863 and now a scheduled industrial monument.

The basin could accommodate ships of 300 tons which once brought coal from Newcastle and timber from Scandinavia.

The navigation is a very broad one and the pound locks (of which there are 11 and one sea lock) measure on average 68 x 17 feet taking vessels measuring 60 feet long, 16 feet of beam and only a two foot draught, making the Chelmer and Blackwater the shallowest navigation in the country.

The bridges and locks were designed by John Rennie, and except for Chapman’s Bridge, Heybridge, they are all constructed of red bricks which were made from brickearth excavated at Hoe Mill and Sawpit Field, Boreham.

The Inland Waterways Association’s subsidiary company Essex Waterways Ltd took over the management of the Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation on 14th November 2005.