The River Wey Navigation is a magical part of Surrey. As a visitor, you leave the wide and busy River Thames at Shepperton and enter a cool quiet haven of peace and tranquillity.
But nearly 400 years ago, it was quite a different matter. Sir Richard Weston realised that the meandering backwater could be made navigable (and profitable) by adding canal sections to straighten it out a bit. The River Wey became a “navigation” in 1653. It was a mini motorway in its own right, over a 100 years before the Canal Mania swept through the country. Entrepreneurs took advantage of being able to transport their goods more quickly and reliably by barge. Flour, corn, wood and gunpowder went to London and on the return, coal was sent for use in making the gunpowder. In the late 17th century 4000 trips were made carrying timber to help rebuild London after the Great Fire of 1666. The River Wey is now managed by the National Trust and there are some interesting wiki pages that talk about its history. A lot of the old mill buildings are still standing, although mostly converted into rather nice homes.
We joined the Wey at Thames Lock, where we paid our 3 week fee of £105.30 (with discount for being NT members) and were lent a specific sized windlass to work the 17 locks, on the 20 navigable miles up to Godalming.
Most but not all of the locks were in excellent condition,
We also came across a very rare turf sided lock, (as opposed to the usually seen stone built locks) the Walsham Gates are now a flood lock so are generally left open.
One of the nice things about the Wey is that you always leave the gates open as the boat exits a lock. Which makes double locks a lot easier.
Although at Millmead lock in Guildford, there’s no shortage of willing helpers. We managed to arrive in Guildford just as the temperatures were threatening to top 40° so although we had a brief trip up the beautiful High Street, we didnt linger.
As the temperatures soared, by far the best place to be was on the water.
One of our favourite mooring spots was on the meadow near Newark Lock and Ripley. We were kept entertained by the youngsters paddle boarding, and it didn’t take me long to pluck up the courage to ask to borrow one for a go. If we cruised here regularly, I would definitely be hankering after my own board. Its good fun. There was lots of entertainment to be enjoyed on the Wey, we were never short of people to watch, and more than once we were the ones being watched
In our opinion we were enjoying a perfect holiday existance, warm and relaxed, so I got to spend a lot of time sitting ourside spinning, and chatting to the many people who stopped to enquire what I was doing.
the evenings were balmy, with some beautiful sunsets
And the mornings equally etherial
Not all of it entirely peaceful as the M25 follows the route for a mile around Byfleet.
but most of the time we felt as if we had been supplanted into a Constable painting
