Kensington Canal

Counter's Creek was a minor tributary of the Thames running south from Kensal Green to join the main river west of Battersea Bridge. Lord Kensington, William Edwardes, seeing the success of the Regent's Canal, asked his surveyor William Cutbush in 1822 to draw up plans to convert the creek into a canal, with the object of bringing goods and minerals from the London docks to the Kensington area, then a rural district isolated from London. After some modifications, Cutbush's plan obtained sanction in the (5 Geo. 4. c. lxv), and the Kensington Canal Company was incorporated in that year. William Edwardes and a group of his friends, including Sir John Scott Lillie, the second largest…

After considerable difficulty in the construction, the canal finally opened on 12 August 1828. The Times newspaper reported that "Witnessed by an immense number of persons the Right Hon. Lord Kensington and a number of friends to the undertaking, embarked in a stately barge at Battersea-bridge and proceeded up the canal ... The whole party entered the basin amidst the cheers of the multitudes assembled, the band on board playing 'God Save the King'. This was followed in the evening by a 'sumptuous dinner' with Lord Kensington in the chair and by his Lordship's command, and chiefly at his expense, a substantial dinner with a butt of porter was also given to about 200 of the workpeople." The…