Monument record SUF 088 - River Stour Navigation

From NRHE Record:
Probably used before the 17th century in its unimproved state, the Stour was in 1638 the subject of a grant of Letters Patent by Charles I to Arnold Spencer. However, nothing was done because of the Civil War, although considered again in 1658. The Stour remained unimproved until an Act of 1705 for work between Manningtree and Sudbury, 25 miles upstream. The improvements were probably complete by 1709, when coal was coming to Sudbury. Railway competition came in the 1850s with a line from Marks Tey to Sudbury, the navigation offering to sell out to the railway. This was refused, and the Stour proprietors had to reduce their tolls. By 1890 the Stour was in debt and becoming silted. To keep solvent, land was sold, the proprietors being replaced in 1892 by the River Stour Navigation Co. Ltd. This went into voluntary liquidation in 1913, but the shareholders formed themselves into a trust to keep the navigation open. They succeeded for a few years, but the last lighter went through Boxted lock below Nayland in 1916. The trust was wound up in 1937, but the South Essex Waterworks Co., under their Act of 1928, built four new locks at Brantham, Flatford, Stratford and Dedham. They were never used. A new River Stour Trust was founded in 1968 with the aim to restore the navigation.