Chichester Canal

The Chichester Canal is a canal in England navigable save for its middle. Its course is essentially intact, 4.5 miles from the sea at Birdham on Chichester Harbour to Chichester through two locks. The canal was opened in 1822 and took three years to build. The canal could take ships of up to 100 long tons . Dimensions were limited to 85 feet long, 18 feet wide and a draft of up to 7 feet . As denoted by the suffix -chester, Chichester is a Roman settlement , and 300 Denarii were unearthed when Chichester Basin was formed in the 1820s.

Proposals for a canal linking Chichester directly to the sea go back as least as far as 1585 when an act of parliament was passed allowing a cut linking Chichester with the sea. Further proposals were made in the early 19th century, with schemes being proposed in 1801, 1802, 1803 and 1811, but none of these came to pass and as a result the first link to the sea was via a branch of the Portsmouth and Arundel Canal opened in 1822. In 1817 it had been decided that the section between Chichester and Chichester Harbour, unlike the rest of the canal, would be built large enough to carry boats of 100 tons. Putting this into practice required a new act of parliament which was obtained in 1819. In the same year the construction of the Chichester branch began. In digging out of the basin a hoard of 300 Denarii was found. The section of the canal that would become the Chichester Canal was formally opened on 9 April 1822

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