GRAND SURREY CANAL, a canal in the N of Surrey, in and near the metropolis. It deflects from the Thames, by a dock at Rotherhithe; goes south-south-eastward, to the western vicinity of Deptford; and proceeds thence westward to Camberwell. It is all on one level, without a lock. It was authorized in 1801; and was originally designed to go to the Thames at Vauxhall creek.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))