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.
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 enjoy the
canals without sampling some of essential
tradition of the 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.
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.
