Dapdune Wharf

Dapdune Wharf is a restored canal wharf on the River Wey & Godalming Navigations, on an island in the river a short walk north of Guildford town centre, in Surrey. It was the main boatyard of the navigation, where the great flat-bottomed Wey barges were built and repaired, and it is now run by the National Trust as the visitor centre for the whole waterway, with the sheds, slipways and a graving dock still in place.

The Wey was made navigable in 1653, one of the earliest rivers in the country to be canalised, its locks and cuts allowing barges to carry timber, corn and gunpowder down to the Thames and on to London. The Stevens family, who owned the navigation for generations, set up the barge yard here in the 1890s, and gave the whole waterway to the National Trust in 1964. Moored at the wharf is Reliance, one of the last surviving Wey barges, built at Dapdune in 1932; she worked to the London docks until she sank in 1968, and was raised and restored to sit in the dry dock where she was made.

The wharf is a ticketed National Trust site, open on set days in the season, with exhibitions in the old buildings and boat trips on the river. The towpath past it, though, is free and open year-round, running downstream towards Weybridge and up through Godalming above the town.