Buckingham Arm

Buckingham Canal (former Buckingham Arm)
Cattleford aqueduct carried the canal over a small stream to the east of Foscote Reservoir
Specifications
Locks2
StatusRestoration project
History
Date of act1793, 1794
Date of first use1800
Date completed1801
Date closed1932
Geography
Start pointCosgrove
End pointBuckingham
Connects toGrand Union Canal
Buckingham Arm
River Great Ouse
Grand Union Canal
-- Cosgrove lock and aqueduct
Bridge 1
550 yd opened Sep 2023
Section under restoration
Bridge 2
Dogsmouth Brook culvert
proposed new locks
 A5  road filled cut
Layby wharf
Hayes Basin, Old Stratford
Watling Street (old A5)
proposed new locks
 A422  road
Old Stratford bypass canal
 A422  road
Thornton bridge
Thornton Wharf
Cattleford aqueduct
Leckhampstead Wharf bypass
bridge
Hyde Lane lock
Bourton lock
Section rewatered
 A413  road
Lower Wharf
bridge
Town Wharf, Buckingham
Terminus Wharf
River Great Ouse

The Buckingham Arm is an English canal that once ran from Cosgrove, Northamptonshire to Buckingham. It was built as an arm of the Grand Junction Canal in two separate phases, a broad canal to Old Stratford, which opened in 1800 and a narrow canal onwards to Buckingham, which opened in 1801. It was disused from 1932, and was dammed at the first bridge in 1944 to reduce leakage from the Grand Union Canal, as the Grand Junction had then become known, but was not finally abandoned until 1964. The remains were severed by the construction of new roads in the 1970s and again in the late 1980s. The section through Old Stratford and Deanshanger was sold off in the 1990s, and the route there has been lost to housing development. The Buckingham Canal Society was formed in 1992, and is actively pursuing a restoration programme. Some 440 yards (400 m) of the canal near Buckingham are now holding water, but the main focus in 2020 was at the Cosgrove end, where a restored channel would be accessible by boat from the Grand Union. Progress was made in September 2023, when 550 yards (500 m) of canal were reopened to navigation.