EAW026495 ENGLAND (1949). Church Street and the town, Rickmansworth, 1949

The main line lock, heading for Birmingham to the right. The lock cottage here was replaced in 1970.

Batchworth Dock, used to transfer goods from canal to railway. The engineering drawings for the wharf, held in the National Waterways Archive, are dated 1915, but it was in use for many years before that.

Town wharf, by now used for storage but built by the brewer Samuel Salter as a general wharf in about 1805. It seems by this time not to be in use for canal craft.

The site, and it seems, the remains, of a large stable block for canal horses. It is believed to have been burned down, but this image shows that it was already gone when that is reputed to have happened. The river Chess is flowing behind it having come over the weir which was built to provide a navigable depth of water to the Town Wharf.

The Chess Lock, leaving the main line of the Grand Union Canal to go up into the canalised river Chess. The river is flowing over the weir just above the lock. The lock was built for the brewer Samuel Salter in 1805, and served the Town Wharf (off the shot) to the right. His brewery will have used the wharf, which closed in the 1930s, but the main purpose was probably to provide a wharf for general business nearer the middle of the town than either Frogmoor Whaf or Batchworth Bridge wharf. It could also have served the gasworks, but only for the removal of waste products - its coal came by rail. By the time of this image the large timber yard was probably the main customer for this trafffic, although the transhipment wharf for the railway also seems to have timber on it - it had been termed 'Batchworth Dock' when being used to transfer asbestos cement sheet from the canal to the railway, having been brought up for the works at Copper Mill, Harefield. It had earlier been used to remove gravel from the gravel pit to the right, but this traffic had ceased by this time.

This is the only remaining part of what had been Dickinson's paper pulp mill, converted in 1819. This building was probably part of the 1820s conversion: the original 1780s cotton mill was used, but was finally demolished in 1910. The other buildings in this group were erected by the Rickmansworth and Uxbridge Valley Water Company before WW1.

The River Colne having come through Batchworth Mill as the mill tail until about 1887, when Dickinson's gave up the paper pulp mill. It looks as though there is something nasty coming down the river, and disgorging into the canal, but by this time what was left of the mill (mainly demolished 1910) had been the waterworks for about forty years.

A timber barge from London Docks, perhaps waiting to go up to the timber yard through Chess Lock. Unpowered, so still horse-drawn in 1949.

Former Boat pub/beerhouse, provided to serve the boaters stopping overnight. The stables attached were for the boat (sometimes barge) horses, as was the larger building on the other side of the bridge. Now offices, recent photo attached.

187/189 High Street now demolished - M&S Car Park

169a high street rickmansworth

Basing House

The line of a short arm of the Grand Junction Canal (Taylor's Cut), which served a bakery owned by John Taylor, also owner of the adjacent manor house (The Bury) during the mid 19th C.

The Bury

Victoria Hotel. Demolished September 2015.

Royal Masonic School for Girls

Telephone exchange

Rickmansworth (Church Street) Station

Working canal butty. Used presumably to deliver timber to adjacent timber yard.

The Coach & Horses pub

The Baptist Church

The Odeon Cinema

The Methodist Church

The old Salter's Brewery. One of the buildings had been adapted as the Rickmansworth Picture House.

The old Salter's brewery maltings. Occupied at this time by Moussec Ltd.

The Swan Hotel

Old police station

Old Fire Station building

Fox & Hounds pub

Franklin's soft drinks factory

The Western pub

Railway Arms pub

Walker's boat yard

White Bear pub