River Stour Navigation (EHER 82141)

The River Stour forms the county boundary between Essex and Suffolk from Sudbury in the west to Manningtree at its mouth. 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. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries the navigation was used, but silting was an ongoing problem and by the early years of the 20th century the river was no longer navigable by larger craft.

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. <1>