Buckingham Arm

Buckingham Canal (former Buckingham Arm)
Cattleford aqueduct carried the canal over a small stream to the east of Foscote Reservoir
Specifications
Locks	2
Status	Restoration project
History
Date of act	1793, 1794
Date of first use	1800
Date completed	1801
Date closed	1932
Geography
Start point	Cosgrove
End point	Buckingham
Connects to	Grand Union Canal

v t e Buckingham Arm
Legend
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.