Narrowboating on the U.K. Inland Waterways
The Life, Death and Resurrection of the Canal System
The navigable canal system is currently undergoing its fastest period of growth for over a century - after years of decline it has come back to life as a leisure facility. Its popularity comes from its unique blend of history, nature, and sheer eccentricity.
Unlike most of the world's canal systems, the British, built theirs to suit boats only two metres wide, but up to 22 metres long. Believe it or not, there was a rational reason for this,.. well, sort of.
The Difficult Birth
In 1758 a Cheshire nobleman known (rather aptly as it turned out)as the Duke of Bridgewater, was having problems with his coal mines in Worsley. Because they were flooded, his miners had to row the coal along miles of narrow underground streams in little punts, before emerging, black and blinking, into the sunlight. The coal was then loaded onto carts and dragged a short distance to the river Irwell, loaded onto boats and towed to Manchester, paying a heavy toll to navigate the river. All this malarkey made his coal rather pricey. So he formulated a cunning plan. Why not dig a ditch all the way to Manchester, fill it with water from the mines, and pull it straight from the coal face to the user. A kind of 18th century version of Just in Time production.
So he and his agent John Gilbert hired a prominent Drainage Engineer of the day, James Brindley, to survey the route for his ditch. They got some rather disappointing news. Unfortunately due to the principle that water does not run uphill, his ditch would have to be a good fifty feet in the air at some points, including where it had to cross the river.
After considering all the possibilities, everyone agreed it was impossible. And so work was started.
Before too long, the Duke started to go bankrupt. He had a grand plan to build a stone bridge across the river for his boats to sail over. Everyone said it would never hold water - and the money was seriously tight. Reluctantly he even considered locks down to the river and up again - but mindful that he would still be a slave to the river navigation landlord he threw caution to the winds. At last the ditch was full and the first boats got through. Everyone gasped in awe at the sight of boats sailing over boats.
Within a year or two he was selling more coal in Manchester than you can shake a stick at, and still profitable at half the price, too. Not only that, but new businesses flocked to the Bridgewater Corridor just like an 18th century Silicon Valley, lured by cheap coal and cheap transport - and every boat paid him a heafty toll, thank you very much! And his bridge hardly leaked a bit! The Duke eventually died loaded.
Brindley's canal was a bit like the Eurounnel project - at first it seemed like a good idea, it nearly went bust halfway through, but once it was in operation - well heck - how did we do without it?
Brindley was now respected engineer, in spite of having had less schooling than most of his horses. He soon got a job planning a new and far longer canal for Josiah Wedgewood, the famous potter.
The Famous Childhood
When they saw what had happened in Manchester, as usual the bankers in the City saw where the smart money was. Suddenly every town with more than two horses wanted to start digging a canal. A lot of shares were sold in some pretty dodgy schemes, and some of the money probably ended up in the casino - but plenty of canals were built. The terrain in England is far from ideal for canal building, and many of these early canals snaked their way along the contours to save on the lock and bridge building. Anyone who has cruised the Oxford canal will know that one can travel for hours on some of these early canals without actually getting very far at all!
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Page Content Copyright ©1999,2000 Martin J Smith except: image of the Duke of Bridgewater based on a cameo from the National Portrait Gallery collection.