New visitor centre for Wey & Arun Canal Trust project
A new visitor centre providing information about the restoration of a canal that runs through Surrey and West Sussex has been officially opened.
The Canal Centre at Loxwood, in West Sussex, was built thanks to money from a volunteer at the Wey & Arun Canal Trust (WACT), who died in 2010.
The trust said Tim Jolly, 62, from Horsham, dedicated a large part of his life to the canal restoration project.
Restoration of the 23-mile (37km) canal has been under way since the 1970s.
It was built between 1813 and 1816 to link the Rivers Wey and Arun, and runs through Shalford, Bramley, Cranleigh and Dunsfold in Surrey, and Loxwood, Wisborough Green and Billingshurst in West Sussex.
It closed in 1871 because of competition from the railways.
Since 1971, the Wey & Arun Canal Trust has been working to reopen navigation along the waterway and, once fully restored, to again link Littlehampton on the south coast with the River Thames via the River Wey.