The 5 mile long Slough Canal Arm travels in a fairly straight line from the Grand Union Canal Main
Line at Cowley Peachey Junction into Slough terminating at the Stoke Poges Road. As building
increased rapidly in London there was an insatiable requirement for bricks
so a new brick works was built in Slough and the Arm was used to get these
bricks onto the Grand Union Canal Main line and then on into London.
The canal was also used to carry sand and gravel until these supplies were exhausted in the early
1940s.
Construction of the Arm started in 1880 and was completed right at the end of 1882 - the Arm then
enjoyed continued commerical operation right up to 1960 when British Waterways took it
over. They considered the canal not to be worth saving and of course along came
Slough Council who wanted to do what they and so many of our councils do best -
shove concrete everywhere and destroy a bit more of our English Heritage.
Fortunately The Slough Canal Group was created and they fought a vigorous
campaign along with the help of the Slough Observer Newspaper to keep the canal
alive - this campaign was successful and the canal was re-opened in 1975.
It is interesting that the big thing these days in England is to get people out
and about for some healthy exercise etc. - canals are ideal for this be it
walking or cycling. You only have to see how many families and people are out on
the canals on a nice Sunday afternoon to see that if the enviornment is safe,
clean and accessible then areas get used.
However in the case of canals the amount of money to upkeep them is in effect being reduced by this double
standard Scottish Government we are blessed with in England. The result is that
canal banks and towpaths are often not kept in good condition and the canal
starts leaking - paths and towpaths get more and more unpassable - therefore the
canals stop being used. The whole situation is quite pathetic- our old canal
systems should have more money spent on them not less. But then
these well payed politicians with their huge pensions, expense payed everythings
and so on are quite obviously not actually interested in ENGLAND - much better
to spend money on a "fact finding" 5 star trip to the Bahamas or whatever they
do when they are not on holiday.
Anyway - this canal towpath is fortunately in really good condition for cyclists and walkers - there
are several bridges and three very interesting aqueducts which are used to cross
Fray's River, the River Colne and Colne Brook - there are no locks on the Arm apart from a
barely visible sight of the original stop lock at the Grand Union end of the
arm. (see the bottom left of the first picture shown below).
The canal is quite wide and did seem to have a reasonable depth of water
although we have read elsewhere that it is quite silted in places. We walked
the Slough Canal Arm at the end of February 2008 and it was evident that some work has been
done especially on the sides where many trees has been lopped etc. Although of
course in our winter the canal looked quite bare there are plenty of trees and
shrubs and reeds around and one imagines it is a very green area to walk or cycle along/around
once Spring arrives.
The Pictures show the route from The Main Line at Cowley Peachey Junction to the Arm's end at Slough.
The Slough Arm ends in Slough by the B416 Stoke Road and sadly this area in a bit of a dismal state - the small basin is scruffy and littered with rubbish and the the basin itself appears quite silted and weedy with grotty stained water. Surrounding the basin there are simply parking slots and a builders yard - when you consider for instance how the basin at Market Harborough looks then maybe the authorities at Slough have missed a trick or two in appreciating the benefits of a canal on their doorstep.
Please see our Home Page for many other items about England including 100s of English Church Photos, wildflowers, toadstools and quite a few walks to try some of which involve using canal towpaths. Also take a look towards the bottom of our Home Page where there are links to our other travel sites about The Canary Islands, Cyprus, Portugal's Algarve, The Greek Islands and Athens, Egypt, India, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangkok, Bali and several other Indonesian Holiday Islands. Visit our Resources topic if you wish to Email Us and/or to see our site privacy policy.