Canal Heritage

Canal history and canal museums, canal culture, canal folk art, canal engineering, traditional canal narrowboats and canal barges, canal restoration, canal societies & canalside castles.

The 'Canal Age', although short, was responsible for opening up Britain to the Industrial Revolution, much as the Internet is now opening up the world to the Information Revolution. Because transport became cheaper, goods and products need no longer be locally produced in small numbers, they could be mass produced at greatly reduced costs. Populations moved to service the factories and mills and their environment and ways of life were irreversibly changed.

Canal people drifted apart from land locked 18th/19th century Britain, developing their own free-floating canal culture, traditions, customs, ways of work and dress.

There's a lot of history alongside our canals as well of course, canals take you to the heart of many famous cities such as Chester and Warwick, through historic sites such as civil war battlefields and past stately homes, castles and follies.

UK Canal Heritage
	Canal history shows canals as an essential part of the Industrial Revolution, bringing materials in, taking finished goods out, changing landscape, lives and culture.	Tony Lewery takes us Off the Main Line for regular journeys through waterways heritage issues, providing an insightful & refreshing alternative view.
	Canal Folk Art is strikingly unique, and its origins' mysterious. Our full section has been specially written for us by the acknowledged expert, Tony Lewery.	Waterways restoration has brought back to life long closed waterways, such as the Kennet & Avon, Huddersfield Narrow Canal and Rochdale Canal.
	Building the English canals was a stupendous undertaking, transforming the countryside and man's place in it. A full section about Canal Engineering.	Many canals and restoration projects have their own Societies, many with Canal Society websites, dedicated to their study, promotion and/or restoration.
	Canal narrowboats, canal barges and other traditional river and canal craft. Severn Trows to BCN Joey boats to Norfolk Wherries. Lots of original photos.	Canals provide ribbons of natural environment which have preserved many countryside plants and creatures as they were before factory farming took over.
	Horses are an important part of canal history, hauling canal boats into the middle of the 20th century, but their story gets overlooked in this mechanical age.	Canal reference books, canal video and DVD materials, waterways magazines.
	What was canal life like, growing up on a working narrowboat, no home other than a one roomed wooden cabin about the size of the back of a stretch-limo?	You can't visit the canals without sampling some of essential tradition of the English canal pub, placed at frequent intervals to quench boatmens' thirsts.
	Canal museums. The best places to see the story of the changes that the canals wrought are in the waterways museums.	Castles & Follies. Britain is full of historic buildings, we list some of the Castles and Follies that can be seen or visited from the canal.