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Concept
Wey and Godalming Navigations
Summary
The River Wey Navigation and Godalming Navigation together provide a continuous navigable route from the River Thames near Weybridge via Guildford to Godalming (commonly called the Wey Navigation). Both waterways are in Surrey and are owned by the National Trust. The River Wey Navigation connects to the Basingstoke Canal at West Byfleet, and the Godalming Navigation to the Wey and Arun Canal near Shalford. The Navigations consist of both man-made canal cuts and adapted (dredged and straightened) parts of the River Wey.
The Wey was one of the first rivers in England to be made navigable; the River Wey Navigation opened in 1653, with 12 locks between Weybridge and Guildford, and the Godalming Navigation, with a further four locks, was completed in 1764. Commercial traffic ceased as late as 1983 and the Wey Navigation and the Godalming Navigations were donated to the National Trust in 1964 and 1968 respectively.
The River Wey has two main sources, which form the North Branch and the South Branch, which join at Tilford. The combined flow continues to Godalming, cuts through the chalk of the North Downs at Guildford, and passes through the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to join the River Thames at Weybridge. It had been used by small boats since medieval times, and some improvements were made to the channel from 1618.
Sir Richard Weston was an owner of land beside the river, and had been responsible for a cut through his land in 1618–1619, running from Stoke Mills to Sutton Green. It included a towing path and several bridges, together with a number of sluices which enabled him to flood of his land in a controlled manner, thus creating water-meadows. As a catholic and a royalist, his property was sequestrated during the English Civil War and he fled to the Low Countries, where he studied inland navigations and the working of pound locks. He returned to England in the late 1640s, and proposed a scheme for making the Wey navigable to Guildford by the use of such locks.
Official source
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