The Canal was built exactly 200 years ago to transport goods to and from the port of Maldon (via Heybridge) to the county town of Chelmsford. It had a good 50 years and then suffered a gradual decline in fortunes as the railways took over. The towpath is now a very pleasant 10ish mile walk through Essex farmland which both my dogs love (for more information about my sad, sad love affair with animals, click HERE.), as we pass some of the 13 locks that raise the canal from the Blackwater Estuary to Chelmsford. The canal is also quite popular in the Summer, providing both a public and a private waterway for pleasure barges and small motor cruisers.

The spot we chose was Cuton Lock about a mile from Chelmsford. Although a reasonably secluded spot, it was near enough the A12 to enable us to man-handle our dive gear and tanks from the road to the lock in one trip. The concrete structure in the right of the lock is a Second World War pillbox, a reminder that the whole of this part of the country was on invasion alert during the early 1940s. The countryside hereabouts is dotted with them.