Qualla: Cann Quarry Canal

Cann Quarry Canal: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jabarney, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1778, the engineer John Smeaton walked the banks of the River Plym with a commission from the slate-quarry owner John Parker. Could a canal carry Cann Quarry's slate to the navigable river at Marsh Mills? Smeaton did the maths. Two and a quarter miles, a thirty-foot drop, several locks required, and only one cargo to pay for it all. His verdict was honest: a tramway would do the job for half the cost. Parker thanked him, paid him, and built nothing for the next fifty years. When a canal finally did get built here in 1829, it was less an act of engineering than an act of spite.

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Image: Jabarney | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cann Quarry Canal: A Quarrel Becomes a Canal

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MichaelMaggs, CC BY-SA 3.0. The story of how the canal eventually got built begins, oddly, with a railway. In 1821, directors of the new Plymouth and Dartmoor horse tramway needed permission to deviate their route. To get John Parker's son, by then the Earl of Morley, to agree, they promised a branch line t...

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Image: MichaelMaggs | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cann Quarry Canal: Opened, Then Obsolete

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit jeff collins, CC BY-SA 2.0. The canal opened on 20 November 1829. It ran for just under two miles. A short half-mile tramway carried cargo the final stretch to Crabtree Junction, crossing the River Plym on a graceful two-arched cast iron bridge that still stands. The whole arrangement worked, after a fashio...

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Image: jeff collins | CC BY-SA 2.0

Cann Quarry Canal: A Quiet Survival

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Atkin, CC BY-SA 2.0. Crabtree Junction is gone now, buried under the interchange where the A38 meets the A374 and a motel parking lot. But Morley's two-arched iron bridge survives. The old tramway has become the West Devon Way, a long-distance footpath and cycleway that follows the river up into the ...

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Image: Tony Atkin | CC BY-SA 2.0