Jane Austen on the cut

It’s sometimes difficult to connect the famous Regency author with the larger world, especially the grittier and industrial aspects of that world. Jane Austen, after all, was born in 1775, the year of the battles of Lexington and Concord that kicked off the American Revolution; and the year that James Watt, the steam engine innovator, partnered with the manufacturer Matthew Boulton,—a union that essentially ushered in the Age of Steam. She was born in a time of revolution and innovation, and her life encompassed the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.

Her life also coincided with the height of canal mania, that period in the late 18th and early 19th century when so much money was lost and made building canals. Construction of the Kennet & Avon Canal began in 1794 and the first navigable stretch of the canal, six miles from Newbury to Kintbury, was completed in 1797. By 1801 the canal was navigable from Bath to Devizes, and coincidentally Austen and her family (consisting of herself, her sister, mother and father) moved to Bath that year.

The author certainly would have seen the canal where it cut through Sydney Gardens, a favorite haunt of Austen who lived nearby at 4 Sydney Place. She wrote of attending public (paid) breakfasts in the gardens and what more natural aid to digestion than to walk across the elegant bridges that spanned the canal. I doubt Austen or her sister Cassandra would have descended to the towpath to mingle with the bargees, but I’m sure she would have enjoyed the picturesque view from a bridge of a horse, possibly led by a young boy or girl, slowly pulling a laden boat.

Those elegant “Chinese” bridges, by the way, were a condition of the gardens, which also charged the canal company 2,000 guineas for access. Later, after Austen’s time, the Great Western Railway also cut through the gardens and today the stone bridges over the rails is a popular place for trainspotting.

Austen also wrote of a planned visit to the “cassoon” or caisson lock at the nearby Somersetshire Coal Canal, and this might be evidence of some interest in engineering on her part … or it could just have been something to do. Austen may have heard of the problems plaguing the first of three caisson locks that were intended to serve the purpose of 22 conventional locks.

The canal would have allowed North Somerset coal mines to cheaply market their product to Bath and the rest of Wiltshire, connecting to the Kennet & Avon Canal at the Dundas Aqueduct. Although the coal canal was abandoned, the Somersetshire Coal Canal Society hopes to restore it and even today you can still stumble upon the route of the canal.

The caisson lock at Combe Hay was essentially a chamber that barges would enter and doors at either end would seal the caisson with the boat inside. The boat would be lowered or raised in a vertical shaft by mechanical means, not by draining water. The opposite door of the chamber would open and the barge would float out. Because the water level in the chamber would always match the water level in the canal, either on the uphill or downhill side, the only water loss would be through the sealed doors (if they leaked) at the top and bottom of the vertical shaft.

This shaft was filled by water and the caisson or chamber was neutrally buoyant within the shaft, meaning it required relatively little effort to raise or lower it. Fortunately no one was required to be on the barge during its passage through the lock. However officials of the canal company did risk a trip through the lock in the caisson … which got stuck. The canal committee was rescued, but it was decided to abandon the scheme.

Today debate continues as to the exact location of the caisson locks because most of the stones used to build them were reused elsewhere on the canal. An inclined plane temporarily replaced the three caisson locks but the eventual completion of the lock flight also made it unnecessary.

I suspect that any visit by Austen to Combe Hay would have required a carriage ride. Today Google Maps suggests a 4.5 mi/7.2 km walking route and Austen was contemplating going there with her uncle, who was recovering from “lameness.” I believe this was her uncle James Leigh-Perrot, who visited Bath with the hope the waters would relieve his gout.

Incidentally another long-distance walk passes through Combe Hay. The Limestone Link is a 36 mi/58 km route connecting the Mendip Hills in Somerset to the Cold Ashton in Gloucestershire. It briefly follows the towpath of the K&A from the Dundas Aqueduct to Batheaston.

In a later post, I’ll talk about other Austen connections to the canal.