Brewhurst Mill in Loxwood, West Sussex, and the Wey & Arun Canal attracted a large number of visitors during national Heritage Open Days over the weekend of 8/9th September. Brewhurst Mill is privately owned, but the owner, Peter Foulger, was pleased to demonstrate the Blackstone 41hp oil engine, dating back to 1928 and still in full working order. A steady stream of visitors crowded into the noisy engine house and through the mill's many floors.

As part of the day's events, a horse-drawn working boat was a big attraction on the Wey & Arun Canal. Rosie the horse and her owner, Jenny Roberts from the Godalming Packet Boat Company, arrived to demonstrate how a goods-carrying barge would have operated on the Wey & Arun Canal back in its heyday in the mid 19th century. A load of timber filled the Trust's judiciously converted work-flat "May Upton" (named after the loyal Clerk of Works who valiantly managed completion of the canal in 1816). The cargo moved swiftly and effortlessly along the newly reprofiled canal, demonstrating the huge environmental benefits of horse-hauled water transport where a horse can haul around 50 times the load practicable on an average road.

The most important cargoes were coal, mainly loaded from lighters at Arundel where they had came from the South Wales coal fields, although some coal was loaded at London Docks having come by lighters from the many coal fields in the north east of England. Groceries too, from London, along with the coal, made life easier and less expensive for the inhabitants of the towns and villages near or on the line of the canal itself. Agricultural produce, timber, stone and hoops for barrels formed the main return cargoes. Other cargoes included gold bullion from Portsmouth to London, guarded by Redcoats, which was occasionally sent between 1824 and 1838. There was also chalk to be used in the lime kilns and seaweed from Littlehampton to be used in the fields as a fertiliser.

Although not recorded, it is likely that corn to be ground at Brewhurst Mill would have arrived by barge from farms along the canal, and subsequently flour taken away by water. The large boat turning area at Brewhurst Lane Bridge was no doubt created for such a purpose.

John Wood, Vice-President of the Wey & Arun Canal Trust, commented "The quietness of a horse-drawn barge is something else, similar to the quietness experienced when travelling by chair lift up a snow-capped mountain". The boat was expertly skippered by Peter Wilding who is the Trust's Loxwood Link Manager.

Further information and photographs in the form of JPEG files can be obtained from the Wey & Arun Trust's Public Relations Officer: Sally Schupke (01483 560543): email: pr@weyandarun.co.uk

For general information on the work of the Wey and Arun Canal Trust, please telephone the Trust office on 01403 752403.