Rebuilding the Heybridge Chunker
Environment Agency
Government
Heybridge, Essex
Water structures
The Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation, is a canal that spans 14 miles from Chelmsford in Essex to the sea lock at Heybridge near Maldon. The canal, which opened in 1797, was once a trade route, and is now used mainly for leisure purposes during the summer months.
Waterways that cross the canal are diverted underneath it by culverts that are known locally as chunkers. The chunker at Heybridge carries the flow of the Langford ditch and, like the canal, is more than 200 years old. It suffered a partial collapse in 2005 when the old elm timbers gave way, causing part of the canal to leak into the drainage channel. Some 230 properties upstream, some of which had been built in the flood plain, were put at risk of flooding.