Aldingbourne’s Historic Canal

If you’re new to our parish you may have wondered why the main A29 road, which is mostly straight between Westergate and Shripney , takes an abrupt S-bend switchback at the Lidsey Bends’. The reason is fascinating – it’s all down to 19^th Century French Emperor Napoleon I, our British Royal Navy, and the UK Industrial Revolution.

At the beginning of the 19^th Century the threat of attack from the French navy led to plans to construct an inland waterway to create a secure link  fromLondon to the vital Royal Navy dockyards at Portsmouth. It would have allowed naval supplies to move between the two without having to venture into the English Channel and possibly encounter enemy ships. Back then, moving heavy goods -  including coal - over the early turnpikes using horsepower was a very slow process.

Unfortunately, and not unusually, the decision process took rather too long!  By the time the first section, the Wey and Arun Junction, was completed the conflict between Britain and France was ended. The section of the Portsmouth and Arundel Canal through Lidsey was not completed to Hunston and Chichester until 1823. From there the canal passed Chichester Harbour, Hayling Island, across Langstone Harbour, onto Portsea Island through Milton, Fratton and Landport.

Our turnpike through Westergate and Woodgate to the emerging resort of Bognor crossed the canal by a bridge at Lidsey – at what is now the ‘Lidsey Bends’. However, the canal was very quickly overtaken by the arrival of the railway which took away most of the trade, The much faster railway reached Woodgate (for Bognor) and Chichester in 1846, and on to Portsmouth the following year. Our section of the canal from Ford, through Lidsey to Hunston closed in the same year, but it was not until 1896 that the road was re-routed around the bridge  by the familiar ‘S’ bends. The bridge structure remained many years in splendid isolation until demolished when the Woodgate-Bognor Road was upgraded – it was not until 1924 that the road was metalled.  Indeed, in 1934 West Sussex County Council proposed an ambitious scheme for a re-routed A29 to by-pass Westergate  - whatever happened to that plan?  Perhaps that’s story for another edition of this Newsletter!   Our Public footpath ALD/200, which follows the line of the canal towpath, can be accessed (with care) at the ‘Lidsey Bends’ .

We lost our original canal bridge at Lidsey, but you can still see what it looked like because the similar Tack Lee bridge at Yapton has been restored and preserved,  as a result of campaigning by the Ford to Hunston Canal Society and as part of Yapton’s heritage. Also, the next time you take the train to Portsmouth, you’ll be travelling over a re-purposed part of the original canal bed between Fratton and Portsmouth & Southsea stations!

Source & Photo Credits: Thanks to Ford to Hunston Canal Society  and ‘Around Aldingbourne’ Mewett/Salmon 2006

Lidsey Public Footpath ALD/200                                   (RR)

A29 Lidsey Bends and Canal bed                (FHCS)

Tack Lee Bridge, Yapton                                           (RR)

Tack Lee Bridge, The Pines, Yapton                 (RR)

A29 Lidsey Ford - Hunston Canal                            (FHCS)

Canal flooded 2021                                   (FHCS)