until it reached the Town River, which it followed to Halesworth Lock. From there, the New Cut took the canal to a wharf at Halesworth, which formed the terminus of the canal. The New Cut joined back up with the Town River a little further to the west, in order to provide the water supply for the locks. The locks were built to allow wherries to use the navigation, and so were . However, they were unusual, in that the side walls curved outwards in the centre, to provide an extra of width. So that wherries could reach his maltings, a local maltster named Patrick Stead increased the water levels above the point where the New Cut and the Town River joined, by building an additional lock near the junction. The day-to-day running of the navigation for the first four years was the responsibility of Samuel Jones, who appears to have overseen the construction of the navigation while Langley Edwards was elsewhere, and who was appointed as lock-keeper, toll-collector, warehouse-keeper and surveyor of works by the Commissioners. Each time his contract was to be renewed, they attempted to reduce his salary, and so he left and was replaced by his assistant William Bickers. Tolls over the next thirty years averaged £134 per year Demise In the early 19th century, the saltings below Blythburgh bridge were reclaimed by the construction of embankments, to prevent them flooding. The plan was poorly thought out, and soon afterwards the condition of Southwold harbour was deteriorating, largely due to the deposition of silt, which made access difficult. The canal engineer John Rennie was asked to advise on a course of action, but although his report of 6 January 1820 pointed to the embanking of the saltings as the cause of the problem, he could offer no acceptable solution. The entrance to the harbour became blocked in 1839, and a further report was prepared by John Wright and James Walker in 1840. They calculated that the embankments surrounding the saltings excluded 5.5 million cubic yards (4.2 million m3) of tidal water on each tide, and thus the scouring effect of the river was considerably reduced. 1879 saw the opening of the Southwold Railway, a narrow gauge line between Southwold and Halesworth, which crossed the navigation near Southwold on a swing bridge. Although lack of capital prevented the construction of a branch from the main line to