52-578: The Oakham Canal ran from Oakham , Rutland to Melton Mowbray , Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It opened in 1802, but it was never a financial success, and it suffered from the lack of an adequate water supply. It closed after 45 years, when it was bought by the Midland Railway to allow the Syston and Peterborough Railway to be built, partly along its course. Most of it
104-690: A 7-mile (11 km) link from Stamford to the River Nene at Peterborough . The River Welland could be reached by a canal from Stamford at the time, and the plans also included a link from the Welland near Market Deeping northwards to the South Forty-Foot Drain , from where Boston could be reached. A bill for this, together with one for a rival scheme to link Stamford to the Grand Junction Canal , which also included
156-464: A community based radio station which broadcast on DAB and online to the county and Stamford in Lincolnshire . The Rutland Mercury and Rutland Times are the local newspapers that serve the area. Oakham School is an English public school , founded together with Uppingham School in 1584. The original school building survives, north-east of the church. It has across its south front
208-675: A final distribution of £44.35 to be made on each of the original shares. The website of the Melton and Oakham Waterways Society gives some of the history of both the Oakham Canal and the Melton Navigation. Download coordinates as: 52°40′45″N 0°43′34″W / 52.6792°N 0.7261°W / 52.6792; -0.7261 Oakham Oakham is a market town and civil parish in Rutland (of which it
260-535: A link to the South Forty-Foot Drain, were put before Parliament in 1811, but neither met with any success. The idea was revived in 1815 and 1828, but no further action was taken. Railway companies arrived in the area in November 1844. When they were approached by the Midland Railway company about proposals for the Syston and Peterborough Railway , the shareholders recommended negotiation. A deal
312-555: Is a state-funded secondary school . Harington School is a sixth form centre next to it. Rutland County College , previously Rutland Sixth Form College, moved from the outskirts of the town to Great Casterton . Oakham United Football Club won the Peterborough and District Football League in 2015 and gained promotion to the United Counties League First Division. It currently plays in
364-467: Is infilled, although much of its route can still be seen in the landscape, and there are short sections which still hold water. From Melton Mowbray, the canal headed broadly eastwards, following the valley of the River Eye , keeping to its north and east bank to reach Wyfordby . The railway, when it was built, followed a much more direct route due east to Wyfordby. The railway then follows the course of
416-407: Is still occasionally used as a coroner's court or Crown Court . It is also licensed for weddings. The outer bailey of the castle, which is still surrounded by low earthworks, lies to the north of the castle. Known as Cutts Close, it is now a park. The park has some deep hollows which are remnants of the castle's dried-up stew ponds (fishponds). A Castle-class corvette named HMS Oakham Castle
468-496: Is the county town ) in the East Midlands of England . The town is located 25 miles (40.2 km) east of Leicester , 28 miles (45.1 km) south-east of Nottingham and 23 miles (37.0 km) north-west of Peterborough . It had a population of 12,149 in the 2021 census. Oakham is to the west of Rutland Water and in the Vale of Catmose . Its height above sea level ranges from 325 to 400 ft (99 to 122 m). The name of
520-487: The Buildings of England series, noted; "It is the earliest hall of any English castle surviving so completely, and it is doubly interesting in that it belonged not to a castle strictly speaking, but rather to a fortified manor house." The building is decorated with Romanesque architectural details, including six carvings of musicians. It is a Grade I listed building. The hall was in use as an assize court until 1970 and
572-598: The Fosse Way at Syston ), and most lock chambers are still extant though in need of repair. A slipway has been built in Melton Mowbray by Waterway Recovery Group volunteers, some dredging and towpath repairs undertaken, and the society has worked with the Sustrans Connect2 project to replace the entrance footbridge at Syston with one offering navigable headroom. Sustrans were awarded £50 million by
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#1732782961183624-546: The Leicestershire coalfields. The proponents worked hard to win over those opposing the scheme, which was split into two again, and both bills were re-submitted in early 1791. The Leicester Navigation bill faced limited opposition, but was granted on 13 May 1791, while the Melton Mowbray Navigation faced no opposition, and was authorised by its act of Parliament on 6 June 1791. The act allowed
676-571: The Melton Mowbray Navigation . William Jessop was asked to survey a route, but it was Robert Whitworth who carried out the work. His route was generally further west than the adopted route, passing to the west of Stapleford, and then through Leesthorpe and Ashwell to reach Oakham. It would have required 13 locks. Meetings were held in December 1785 to consider proposals for an extension onwards from Oakham to Stamford. In 1791,
728-703: The Oakham Hundred , one of the five historic hundreds of Rutland. When elected parish and district councils were created under the Local Government Act 1894 , Oakham was given a parish council and included in the Oakham Rural District . The parish was removed from the rural district in 1911 to become the Oakham Urban District , with the parish council being replaced by an urban district council. The urban district
780-590: The Peterborough & District League Premier Division. Oakham Rugby Football Club plays at the Rutland Showground. Oakham Cricket Club plays at the Lime Kilns off Cricket Lawns. Oakham is twinned with: Melton Mowbray Navigation The Melton Mowbray Navigation was formed when the River Wreake in Leicestershire , England , was made navigable upstream from its junction with
832-589: The River Soar and the Leicester Navigation near Syston to Melton Mowbray , opening in 1797. Largely river navigation, there were numerous lock cuts, to accommodate the 12 broad locks built along its length, many of which were built at sites where it was necessary to maintain the water levels for an adjacent mill. With railway competition, and the closure of the Oakham Canal , to which it
884-428: The River Soar and the national waterways system. The route passed through 19 broad locks along its 15.5-mile (24.9 km) route, rising 126 feet (38 m) between Melton and Oakham. No aqueducts or tunnels were required, and there was just one large embankment near Edmondthorpe . The main cargos carried were coal, which moved up the canal, and agricultural produce, which was carried away to market. The enterprise
936-491: The 14th century, dominates distant views of the town for several miles in all directions. Restored in 1857–1858 by Sir George Gilbert Scott , the church is a Grade I listed building. Only the great hall of the Norman castle is still standing, surrounded by steep earthworks marking the inner bailey . The hall dates from about 1180–1190. The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner , in his Leicestershire and Rutland volume of
988-670: The Leicester Navigation and the Melton Mowbray line were authorised by acts of Parliament , and new plans for the Oakham line were drawn up, following a meeting in April 1792. The Earls of Harborough and Winchilsea supported the navigation, and a bill was put before Parliament in September. In November, some £51,000 was promised towards the costs of construction, and on 7 May 1793, the Oakham Canal Act 1793 ( 33 Geo. 3 . c. 103)
1040-537: The Melton line and the Oakham line was critical of him, and he resigned as engineer, to be replaced in late 1797 by William Dunn of Sheffield. Although Dunn had no previous experience at building canals, he saw the work through to a successful conclusion. Costs overran, and it was difficult to raise money due to the uncertainties caused by the French Revolutionary Wars , but a second act of Parliament
1092-546: The Oakham company negotiated, and the railway bought the canal on 29 October 1847, with a view to closing it and using part of the bed for their line. The effect on the Melton Mowbray Navigation was dramatic. 1847 was its best year, for it carried 68,896 tons, of which 39,451 proceeded on to the Oakham canal. With the Oakham closed, traffic for the following year was less than half, at 30,879 tons, and had dropped to just 13,301 tons in 1850. Income fell even faster, from £4,830 in 1847 to £415 in 1849. The Canal company attempted to sell
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#17327829611831144-483: The People's Lottery Fund in 2008, to fund 79 projects, of which the bridge replacement was one. Work began on the new bridge, which provides 8 feet (2.4 m) of headroom, in late 2012, following lengthy discussions between the society, Sustrans, Leicestershire County Council and British Waterways , and it was completed in 2013. The demolished Syston Lock needs to be rebuilt to open up the first 1 mile (1.6 km) of
1196-456: The canal by 71 feet (22 m) between the Soar and Melton. The canal served a mainly rural area, and traffic levels reflected this. The population of Melton Mowbray was recorded as 1730 in the census of 1801. The main cargoes were coal, supplemented by barley, oats and wheat, granite, lime, wool and manure. Coal traffic amounted to 16,781 tons in 1797, although of this, 77 per cent was carried up
1248-464: The canal much more closely, although there are only a few small sections where it actually followed the canal bed. Near the junction with the dismantled railway branch to Bourne , the canal swept northwards in a loop, to cross the River Eye, near which was Saxby wharf. The canal then headed southwards to the east of Stapleford Park , where there was another wharf, on its way to Station Cottages, which
1300-529: The canal, and the rest was carried down the canal, so it appears that coal was resold to the Leicester market when prices fluctuated. The Oakham Canal , when it opened in 1802, was never a success financially, but generated extra traffic for the Melton Mowbray Navigation, with around half of the coal passing up the canal continuing on to Oakham, and agricultural produce passing down on its way to Leicester. The main wharves were at Melton Basin and Rearsby, although
1352-495: The castle. There are now over 200 of these commemorative shoes on its walls. Not all are dated and some of the earliest (which would doubtless have been ordinary horseshoes given without ceremony by exasperated noblemen) may not have survived. The earliest datable one is an outsize example commemorating a visit by King Edward IV in about 1470. Recent horseshoes commemorate visits by Princess Anne (1999), Prince Charles (2003) and Princess Alexandra (2005). The horseshoes hang with
1404-513: The construction of the Grantham Canal . Although he declared that the workmanship and the materials used were very bad, he completed the work and the navigation was open by 1797. A second act of Parliament ( 39 & 40 Geo. 3 . c. lv) was obtained to resolve a number of financial issues, and it seems that the total cost of the project was around £45,000. The navigation was 14.75 miles (23.74 km) long, with twelve broad locks, which raise
1456-549: The construction, as the company records have not survived. The first section, from the Soar to Frisby Mill, was opened in November 1794. The canal was built during the time of the French Wars , and inflation was a problem, resulting in costs over-running. In March 1795, a special meeting was held to consider how to raise more money, while in July, Staveley was 'voted out', to be replaced by William Green, who had been involved in
1508-692: The ends pointing down; while this is generally held to be unlucky, in Rutland this was thought to stop the Devil from sitting in the hollow. The horseshoe motif appears in the county council's arms and on Ruddles beer labels. The museum is located in the old Riding School of the Rutland Fencible Cavalry which was built in 1794–1795. The museum houses a collection of objects relating to local rural and agricultural life, social history and archaeology. A statue of Elizabeth II by Hywel Pratley
1560-404: The figures for the period between 1839 and 1842 record nine other wharves, although the precise location of most of them is conjectural. In Melton itself, new wharves were built, which provided warehousing, a granary, a coal yard and malt offices, to the west of the main basin. Dividends on the shares gradually increased, reaching 7.5 per cent in 1809, and 10 per cent in 1821, where they remained for
1612-539: The inscription Schola Latina – Graeca – Hebraica A ° 1584 and above its door a stone with an inscription in Latin , Greek and Hebrew . Oakham School is the owner of the town's former workhouse . Built in 1836–1837 by the Oakham Poor Law Union , it held 167 inmates until its conversion into Catmose Vale Hospital. It now contains two of the school houses for girls. Catmose College , founded in 1920,
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1664-432: The next 20 years. Income from tolls exceeded £4,000 per year in the 1830s. Cargoes benefited from the connection at Syston to the very successful Leicester Navigation. The Oakham canal had never been so profitable, paying dividends of around 3.8 per cent, and lack of water during the dry summer of 1844 resulted in it closing for five months. When the Midland Railway sought to build their Syston and Peterborough Railway ,
1716-542: The opportunity came to submit the bill to Parliament in March 1786, two bills were submitted, one for the Soar from Loughborough to Leicester, and a second for the Soar from Loughborough to the mouth of the Wreake, and up the Wreake to Melton. The main Soar bill was defeated, and the Wreake bill was shelved. A single bill combining both of the previous two plans was submitted in 1789, but was again defeated, due to opposition from
1768-439: The proprietors to raise £25,000 by issuing shares, with an additional £5,000 if required. Many of the shareholders lived locally, though there were some from further afield. William Jessop's assistant, Christopher Staveley had drawn up the detailed plans, which included details of the lock sites and cuts necessary to build them, together with sites where the river would be straightened to aid navigation. Ten mills were in operation at
1820-426: The railway was authorised by Parliament and a second act to allow the canal to be sold and abandoned was obtained on 27 July 1846. The railway from Syston to Melton Mowbray opened on 1 September 1846. It would be more than a year before the sale of the canal was finally completed, on 29 October 1847, but just six months after that, the line from Melton Mowbray to Oakham opened on 1 May 1848. The purchase price enabled
1872-520: The time, and so that determined the location and fall of ten of the locks. Although the plans showed lock cuts with a lock at the upper end of the cut, they were moved to the lower end, as Jessop's work on the River Thames had shown that this arrangement tended to prevent the formation of a bar or shoal where the lock cut rejoined the river. Work began soon after the award of the act, with Staveley employed as engineer, although there are few details of
1924-412: The town means "homestead or village of Oc(c)a" or "hemmed-in land of Oc(c)a". There are two tiers of local government covering Oakham, at parish (town) and unitary authority level: Oakham Town Council and Rutland County Council . The town council is based at Rol House on Long Row. The county council is also based in the town, at Catmose House . Oakham was an ancient parish , and gave its name to
1976-532: The town now extends into the neighbouring parish of Barleythorpe , to the north-west of the town centre. Tourist attractions in Oakham include All Saints' Church and Oakham Castle . Another historic feature is the open-air market held in the town's market place every Wednesday and Saturday. Nearby is the Buttercross with an octagonal stone-slate roof and the wooden stocks – both Grade I listed buildings . The spire of Oakham parish church, built during
2028-711: The town with Corby , Melton Mowbray and Stamford . The Oakham Canal connected the town to the Melton Mowbray Navigation , the River Soar and the national waterways system between 1802 and 1847. Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC East Midlands and ITV Central . Television signals are received from the Waltham TV transmitter. Rutland's local radio stations are BBC Radio Leicester on 104.9 FM, Smooth East Midlands on 106.6 FM, Hits Radio East Midlands on 106.0 FM, Greatest Hits Radio Midlands (which used to be Rutland Radio ) on 107.2 FM, Sabras Radio on 91.0 FM and Rutland and Stamford Sound,
2080-684: The upper lock gates, and some of the bridges were lowered while others were rebuilt. The towpaths, which were rented from the owners of the banks, reverted to their owners. Restoration of the navigation and the Oakham Canal was first proposed by the Leicester Branch of the Inland Waterways Association in 1997, and this led to the formation of the Melton & Oakham Waterways Society. Very few bridges have been lowered (the principal one being Lewin Bridge, which carries
2132-550: The waterway to the Loughborough Navigation in the 1860s, and then to the Midland Railway Company, but neither were interested. It struggled on until closure on 1 August 1877. The act of Abandonment required the structures of the canal to be put into good order before they were abandoned, and this process was overseen by the engineer A.W. Dalton. Crescent shaped weirs were built in place of
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2184-604: Was abolished in 1974 and a new parish council established, taking the name Oakham Town Council. Oakham, along with the rest of Rutland , has been represented at Westminster by the Conservative Member of Parliament Alicia Kearns since 2019. Women in the Oakham South East ward had the fifth-highest life expectancy at birth, 95.7 years, of any ward in England and Wales in 2016. The urban area of
2236-531: Was another wharf, about 1 mile (1.6 km) from Cottesmore. Just before the road, the course is crossed by the former mineral railway to Cottesmore Iron Mines sidings, now occupied by the Rutland Railway Museum . The canal passes the site of the former Ashwell Prison , near which some of it is still in water, to arrive at Oakham, where there was a terminal wharf. Plans for a canal to Oakham were first conceived in 1785, by some of those proposing
2288-562: Was connected, decline was rapid, and the canal closed in 1877. Two hundred years after it was opened, the Melton & Oakham Waterways Society was formed, with the aim of returning the navigation to a navigable waterway once more. The first proposals to link Melton Mowbray to the canal network were made in 1780, following on from the success achieved by the Loughborough Navigation and the Erewash Canal . The intent
2340-491: Was granted, authorising the Oakham Canal Company to raise £56,000 by issuing shares, with an additional £20,000 if required. The new route had been surveyed by William Jessop, but the detailed design was done by Christopher Staveley junior, who then became the engineer. Staveley was also involved with the Leicester and the Melton navigations, but was sacked by the Melton company in 1795. A report into his work on
2392-408: Was launched in July 1944. Traditionally, members of royalty and peers of the realm who visited or passed through the town had to pay a forfeit in the form of a horseshoe . This unique custom has been enforced for over 500 years, but nowadays it only happens on special occasions (such as royal visits), when an outsize ceremonial horseshoe, specially made and decorated, is hung in the great hall of
2444-427: Was not a financial success. Those who had invested in the canal had paid £130 for their shares, and the first dividend of £2 was paid in 1814. £3 was paid the following year, but there were no further payments until 1827, when another £2 was paid. The most profitable year was 1840, when the dividend reached £5. The idea of a link from Oakham to Stamford, 11 miles (18 km) due east, was revived in 1809, with plans for
2496-467: Was obtained in 1800, allowing the company to raise another £30,000. The final cost of construction was between £65,000 and £70,000. The canal opened in stages, reaching Saxby in November 1800, and was declared to be completed in June 1802, but the water supply was inadequate, and it was probably not usable to Oakham until January 1803. The canal connected Oakham to the Melton Mowbray Navigation , and hence to
2548-484: Was struck, with the Midland Railway paying £26,000 and 200 fully paid up £40 shares for the canal. In 1844, the canal had carried 31,182 tons of goods upwards, with around 72 per cent of it being coal, and grain and wool amounting to 4,120 tons had passed down the canal. The lack of a proper water supply had resulted in the canal being closed for nearly five months during the dry summer of 1844. The construction of
2600-408: Was the location of Whissendine railway station , although it was some distance from the village. Beyond the station, the railway abandoned the course of the canal, heading south-eastwards to Ashwell and then south to Oakham. The canal headed east to Edmondthorpe and on to Market Overton , where a third wharf served the village. Proceeding southwards, it reaches the road to Cottesmore , where there
2652-491: Was to make the River Soar navigable to Leicester , and the River Wreake navigable to Melton. Although nothing came of these first proposals, public meetings were held in 1785, and the civil engineer William Jessop surveyed the route in October. Around £6,000 was subscribed to fund the scheme, and thoughts of upgrading the River Eye to enable boats to reach Oakham , and of cutting a canal to Stamford were also voiced. When
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#17327829611832704-624: Was unveiled on 21 April 2024, which would have been the 98th birthday of the late Queen. The 7ft (2.1m) tall sculpture on a limestone base was commissioned by the Lord Lieutenant of Rutland and funded through donations from businesses and members of the public, at the cost of £125,000. Oakham railway station is a stop on the Birmingham–Peterborough line . It is served by two train operating companies : Most bus services in Oakham are operated by Centrebus and Blands. Routes link
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