FREE ENGLISH CANALS EXPLAINED PDF Stan Yorke,Trevor Yorke | 128 pages | 31 Dec 2003 | COUNTRYSIDE BOOKS | 9781853068256 | English | Berks, United Kingdom Canals of the United Kingdom - Wikipedia The canals of the United Kingdom are a major part of the network of inland waterways in the United Kingdom. They have a colourful historyfrom use for irrigation and transportthrough becoming the focus of the Industrial Revolutionto today's role of recreational boating. Despite a English Canals Explained of English Canals Explained, today the canal system in the United Kingdom is again in increasing use, with abandoned and derelict canals being reopened, and the construction of some new routes. Canals in England and Wales are maintained by navigation authorities. One purpose-built ship canal in the United Kingdom, the Manchester Ship Canalis incomparable to any other. Canals first saw use during the Roman occupation of the south of Great Britain and were used mainly for irrigation. The Romans also created several navigable canals, such as Foss Dyketo link rivers, enabling increased transport inland by water. The United Kingdom's navigable water network grew as the demand for industrial transport increased. The canals were key to the English Canals Explained of the Industrial Revolution: roads at the time were unsuitable for large volumes of traffic. A system of very large pack horse trains had developed, but few roads were suitable for wheeled vehicles able to transport large amounts of materials especially fragile manufactured goods such as pottery quickly. Canal boats were very much quicker, could carry large volumes, and were much safer for fragile items. Following the success of first the Sankey Canal followed by the Bridgewater Canalother canals were constructed between industrial centres, cities and ports, English Canals Explained were soon transporting English Canals Explained materials particularly coal and lumber and manufactured goods. As the Industrial Revolution took hold in the end of the 18th and beginning of the English Canals Explained centuries, English Canals Explained technology allowed canals to be improved. English Canals Explained early canals contoured round hills and valleys, later ones went straighter. Locks took canals up and down hills, and they strode across valleys on taller and longer aqueducts and through hills in longer and deeper tunnels. As trains, and later road vehicles, became more advanced, they became cheaper than the narrow canal system, being faster, and able to carry much larger cargoes. Some narrow canals became unusable, filled with weeds, silt and rubbish, or were converted to railways. There was a late burst of wide-waterway building e. However, the last new canal before the end of the 20th century was the New Junction Canal in Yorkshire now South Yorkshire in As English Canals Explained intensified, horse-drawn single narrowboats were replaced by steam and later diesel powered boats towing an unpowered butty, and many of the boatmen's families abandoned their shore homes for a life afloat, to help with boat handling and to reduce accommodation costs — the birth of the legendary "boatman's cabin" with bright white lace, gleaming brass and gaily-painted metalware. Constant lowering of tolls meant that the carriage of some bulky, non-perishable, and non-vital goods by water was still feasible on some inland waterways English Canals Explained but the death knell for commercial carrying on the narrow canals was sounded in the winter of —63, when a long hard frost kept goods icebound on the canals for three months. A few of the remaining customers turned to road and rail haulage to ensure reliability of supply and never returned, though both rail and road had been severely disrupted by the frost and snow too. Other narrowboat traffic gradually ceased with the change from coal to oil, the closure of canalside factories, and run-down of English Canals Explained heavy industry. Regular narrowboat traffics continued, such as lime juice from Brentford to Boxmoor until while aggregates were carried on the River Soar until The last major investment development of the inland waterways was the enlargement of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation in the early s to cope with barges of standard European dimensions that in the depression of the 80s never came. The scale of the futile hopes of those days can be appreciated by the occupants of a holiday narrowboat nearly lost in a lock built for the barges that were going to sail down the Rhineacross English Canals Explained North Sea aboard a ship, and up to Doncaster. Today there have been a number of successful initiatives to get more traffic on to the larger inland waterways, though even the Manchester Ship Canal does not convey cargo ships to the docks in Salford, which have English Canals Explained little English Canals Explained than a 'water feature' English Canals Explained the apartments, offices and cultural institutions of 'Salford Quays' that have replaced the wharves and warehouses. In the latter half of the 20th century, while the use of canals for transporting goods was dying out, there was a rise in English Canals Explained in their history and potential use for leisure. A large amount of credit for this is usually given to L. Roltwhose book Narrow Boat about a journey made in the narrowboat Cressy was published in A key development was the foundation of the Inland Waterways Associationand the establishment of fledgling weekly boat-hire companies, following the example of such companies on the Norfolk Broadswhich had long been used for leisure boating. The authority responsible for the canals, the British Waterways Boardencouraged this process from the late s English Canals Explained operating a fleet of holiday hire boats, initially converted from cut-down working boats. Holidaymakers began renting ' narrowboats ' and roaming the canals, visiting towns and villages they passed. Other people bought boats to use for weekend breaks and the occasional longer trip. The concept of a canal holiday became even more familiar when the large English Canals Explained that dealt with Broads holidays began to include canal boatyards in their brochures. Canal-based holidays became popular due to their relaxing nature, self-catering levels of cost, and variety of scenery available; from inner London to the Scottish Highlands. This growth in interest came just in time to give local canal societies the ammunition they needed to combat government proposals in the s to close commercially unviable canals, and to resist pressure from local authorities and newspapers to "fill in this eyesore" or even to "close the killer canal" when someone fell in one. It was not long before enthusiastic volunteers were repairing unnavigable but officially open canals and moving on to restore officially closed ones and demonstrating their English Canals Explained viability to the authorities. Local authorities began to see how a cleaned-up and well-used waterway was bringing visitors to other towns and waterside pubs — not just boaters, but people who just like being near water and watching boats see gongoozler. They began to clean up their own watersides, and to campaign for "their" canal to be restored. As a result of this growing revival of interest, for the first time in a century some new routes have been constructed the Ribble Link and the Liverpool Canal Linkanother is under construction the Fens Waterways Link. Large projects such as the restoration of the Anderton Boat Liftor the building of the Falkirk Wheel attracted development funding from the European Union and from the Millennium Fund. Canal aqueducts are structures that carry a canal across a valley, road, railway, or another canal. Dundas Aqueduct is built of stone in a classical style. Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is an iron trough on tall stone piers. Three Bridges, London is a clever arrangement allowing the routes of the Grand Junction Canal, a road, and a railway line to cross each English Canals Explained. Locks are the most common means of raising or lowering a boat from one water level to another. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber whose water-level can be changed. Where a large height difference has to be overcome, English Canals Explained are built close together in a flight such as at Caen Hill Locks. Where the gradient is very steep, a set of staircase locks are sometimes used, like Bingley Five Rise Locks. At the other extreme stop locks have little or no change in level but were built to conserve water where one canal joined another. An interesting example is King's Norton Stop Lock which was built with guillotine gates. See also List of canal locks in the United Kingdom. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Main article: History of the British canal system. Further information: List of canals of the United Kingdom. Further information: List of canal aqueducts in the United Kingdom. Further information: List of canal tunnels in the United Kingdom. United Kingdom portal Transport portal. British Waterways. Retrieved 3 February Britain's biggest English Canals Explained, its size, construction methods and operations make it incomparable with any other inland waterway in the country. The Guardian. Retrieved 13 March British Canals An Illustrated history Fifth ed. Retrieved 7 February Navigable canals of the United Kingdom. Notes : 1 Contains canalised river. Canals which form part of this system are not listed here individually. Hidden categories: Use dmy dates from June All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from February Articles with unsourced statements from August Commons link is locally defined. Namespaces Article Talk. Views Read Edit View history. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file. Download as PDF Printable version. Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Canals in the United Kingdom. English Canals Explained – Countryside Books For many tourists, authors, and daydreamers, Oxford, England is a fairy-tale world of spires and towers, medieval gentility and lofty knowledge.