About Granny Mo's and the Kennet and Avon Canal
Granny Mo's tea room is situated on the Canal Wharf at Bradford on Avon in a building steeped in history. The tea room is run by Cornish Grandmother Mo Bennie and it has been operating from its current location since Oct 2006. Fiercely proud of her Cornish roots, (you can take the woman out of Cornwall, but you cannot take Cornwall out the woman!!) you cannot fail to note the Cornish connection inside, but this adds to the ambience and in fact when time permits, she will bake the BEST Cornish pasties this side of the River Tamar.....trust me I know!!
This Upper Wharf and the Lower Wharf served Bradford on Avon canal traffic. The dry dock at this wharf, adjacent to Granny Mo's tea room used to be a gauging dock where boats could be measured and weighed to determine toll rates prior to and after moving through the Bradford lock.
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Work in the dry dock continues today alongside Granny Mo's, and it is a rare event indeed for the dock to be empty. Owners and the local boat repair company toil for long hours repairing craft in the dock and alongside the wharf. You may even be lucky to visit on a crane day when boats are lifted in and out of the canal, or maybe watch one of the local boat community producing canal art on the side of a narrowboat.
Next to the canal, a little way west of the Bradford lock, is a huge 14th century Tithe barn. and is easily reached by a short stroll alongside the towpath. The Tithe Barn was built in was part of the land owned by Shaftesbury Abbey. It was used to store the farm produce of the Abbey’s grange in Bradford on Avon. Also on the wharf are several historical buildings associated with the canal.
The Kennet and Avon Canal
During the 18th Century the standard of roads in the country was poor. They were badly rutted and muddy, often becoming impassable during the winter by coaches and horses. Coaches were pulled by teams of horses and the weight carried was limited. On a waterway a single horse could pull a barge laden with up to 30 tons of cargo.
John Rennie was appointed as the engineer to the Kennet and Avon canal and the construction began at Bradford on Avon and at Newbury in October 1794. The last section to be completed was the Caen Hill flight of locks at Devizes in December 1810.
Goods imported from abroad coming into both Bristol and London docks found its way onto the Kennet and Avon Canal. Tin plate, copper and salt passed down the canal from Bristol to London whilst tea and other provisions passed from London to Bristol. These goods also became widely available in the markets in the towns along the length of the canal.
Coal from the Somerset coalfields generated a very lucrative trade during the 19th century. It descended on the Somerset Coal Canal to the Kennet and Avon Canal, joining at the western end of the Dundas Aqueduct to the West of Bradford on Avon.
This area can still be seen today, although the Somerset Coal Canal has long since gone. Much of the coal continued northward on the Wilts and Berks Canal via the Junction at Semington. The canal's most prosperous years were 1824 to 1839 when toll receipts annually exceeded £42,000, however major problems were looming.
In the late 18th and early 19th century the Industrial Revolution happened and subsequently the opening of the Great Western Railway in 1841 removed much of the canal's traffic. In 1852 the railway company took over its running, levying high tolls at every toll point until the canal was hardly used. The canal began to fall into disrepair and its neighbours the Somerset Coal Canal and the Wilts and Berks Canal, which supplied some of the trade from to the Kennet and Avon, closed in 1904 and 1906 respectively.
By the 1950s large portions of the canal were completely closed because of poor lock maintenance. In the mid 1950s the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust successfully petitioned against its legal closure and in 1963 the newly formed British Waterways took over the canal and immediately began restoration work.
The Kennet and Avon Canal Trust was formed in the 1960s to restore the canal from Reading to Bristol as a through navigation and as a public amenity. In partnership with British Waterways and local authorities the Trust has continued to work to safeguard the navigation. In 1990 HM Queen Elizabeth II re-opened the canal.