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Exhibition – From London to The Sea – The Final Leg
August 29 @ 10:30 AM – October 26 @ 4:30 PM
This exhibition for Emsworth Museum opens on Friday 29 August and focuses on some of the local elements of the huge engineering project that is now firmly a part of local legend. In 1823, The Portsmouth to Arundel Navigation was opened to great applause – thanks to British engineering and finance, Portsmouth was now joined to London via a new waterway that would make the investors wealthy and the delivery of goods to the Royal Navy at Portsmouth, much faster and cheaper. Did it happen? Well of course it didn’t.
The exhibition takes a brief look at some of the local investors including William Padwick of Warblington House, Viscount Keith of Purbrook House and the 3rd Earl of Egremont of Petworth House. We look at changes to the local landscape that the project brought to Portsea Island and Cosham and of course, the construction of the first proper bridge between Haying Island and Langstone. The exhibition offers possible reasons for the failure of the canal and looks at how we were saved from some of the future plans and projects dreamed up by some of the investors and interested parties, all in the name of progress.
From London to the Sea – The Final Leg is supported by an illustrated talk at the Emsworth Community Centre on Thursday 18 September at 7:30pm by Nigel Gossop, entitled The Rise and Fall of the Portsmouth to Arundel Navigation. Tickets are £5.00 each and are available from Bookends, High Street, Emsworth from Friday 1 August.
The exhibition is open:
Fridays 10:30am to 4:30pm (August only)
Saturdays and Bank Holidays 10:30am to 4:30pm
Sundays 1:30pm to 4:30pm