Otter Dock

Otter Dock was a branch of the Grand Junction Canal (renamed Grand Union Canal from 1929) in England. In March 1818, permission was obtained from the Grand Junction Canal Company for a dock to be built to service Yiewsley’s brickworks. Otter dock was opened in 1820 and after several extensions stretched 1,200 yards (0.7 of a mile /1.1 km) [1] north from the mainline of the canal. With the inclusion of the arms within Otter dock, its total length was 1845 yards (1.05 miles /1.68 km).[2] Bricks were moulded and fired in Yiewsley’s brick-fields and transported via the Otter Dock and the Grand Junction Canal Paddington Arm to the South Wharf in the Paddington Basin and to wharves situated along the Regent's Canal.[3] The bricks were then used in the construction of 19th-century London.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the brick-fields and the later gravel pits which the Otter Dock served had been worked out. Work started to fill in Otter Dock north of Horton Road in 1909 and was completed in 1911.[4] In 1910 chestnut and beech trees were planted along the filled-in canal between the recently constructed Ernest Road and Colham Road in the southern section of the former Arm. The roads were renamed Colham Avenue in 1938.[5] The wide boulevard of Poplar Avenue was part of the northern section of the Arm.

Trees line Colham Avenue, formally part of the southern section of the Otter Dock

References
  1. "Middlesex XIV.S.E. revised 1894". maps.nls.uk. Ordnance Survey Second edition 1897. Retrieved 5 June 2020.
  2. Faulkner, Alan H. (1972). The Grand Junction Canal. David and Charles (Publishers) Limited. pp. 97, 202. ISBN 0715357506.
  3. Ian Petticrew and Wendy Austin (October 2012). "The Grand Junction Canal A Highway Laid With Water". tringhistory.tringlocalhistorymuseum.org.uk. Tring and District Local History & Museum Society. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
  4. Cox, A.H. (1983). West Drayton & Yiewsley through the centuries. Hillingdon Borough Libraries. p. 34. ISBN 0907869033.
  5. Skinner, James (2003). Images of England West Drayton and Yiewsley. Tempus Publishing. p. 13. ISBN 9780752428413.

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