The North Walsham and Dilham Canal is a waterway in the English county of Norfolk. It was authorised by Parliament in 1812, but work on the construction of a canal which ran parallel to a branch of the River Ant did not start until 1825. It included six locks, which were sized to accommodate wherries, and was officially opened in August 1826. It was 8.7 miles (14.0 km) long and ran from two bone mills at Antingham to a junction with the River Ant at Smallburgh. It carried offal for the bone mills and agricultural products, as it proved cheaper to land coal on the beach at Mundesley and cart it overland than to use the canal.
The venture was not a commercial success, and it was sold to various millers, who owned watermills along its length. The section above Swafield locks was abandoned in 1893, and from 1922 it was owned by the North Walsham Canal Company, set up by Edward Cubitt and George Walker, who were mill owners. The last commercial use of the canal was in 1934, and it avoided nationalisation in 1948. With the dawning of the leisure age, the canal was seen as an easy one to restore, but work to do so did not start until 2000, when the East Anglian Waterways Association (EAWA) started to run working parties for volunteers. In 2008 the North Walsham and Dilham Canal Trust was formed, and jointly run working parties with the EAWA. In 2009, part of the canal was sold to the Old Canal Company, who have worked to restore two locks and the pounds in between, in order to run Bacton Wood Mill as a watermill. Rewatering was interrupted by the Environment Agency issuing a stop notice in April 2012, but negotiations continue.
The canal served six mills, located along its banks, including the two bone mills at Antingham. There has been a mill at Bacton Wood since the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, and much of the present building dates from 1747. It was the home of Sir William Cubitt, who invented the self-regulating windmill sail and the prison treadmill. Since the millpond at Ebridge has been cleared and rewatered by volunteers, there has been a significant increase in the types of wildlife observed at the location. The area through which the canal flows is at risk of flooding, and this is mitigated by the actions of the Broads Internal Drainage Board, who manage drains and ditches in the upper regions, and have two pumping stations which pump water into the canal at its lower end.
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