Introduction: Great Britain, for all its small size, long coast line and numerous navigable rivers, has an amazing length and number of canals covering most of the central area and extending to the less mountainous extremities. At their peak in the early 1800's there was around 3000 miles in use for transport. Because of the scale of the country, the size of the catchments and the period in which they were built, they are generally suitable for only small vessels (ie of small gauge) and this led to their rapid decline for freight carriage in the face of competition first from the railways and latterly roads.
Why do I like canals? Well in my youth I always loved playing around with water - trying to make rafts and crude boats, damming streams and all the things that young lads did before they were seriously interested in girls. At some point I started sailing by hiring yachts on the Norfolk broads, which are canals but designed mainly for drainage of low-lying land. Celia, my wife to be, did not trust sailing boats however, so when I suggested a watery honeymoon, I compromised on a canal holiday since you are never that far from land. We took a small cruiser down the Oxford canal from Rugby to Aynho and back, and ever since I have never lost my enjoyment of chugging around these green and pleasant highways and byways.
A few facts: A few of the larger canals in the North East of England, the Manchester Ship Canal and some river navigations such as the Thames, the Severn and the Trent can take larger vessels and are still used commercially. In the rest of the system three common gauges were used: Narrow: 72 x 7 feet, barge: 72 x 14 feet and Northern 62 x 14 feet. Thus the maximum size of vessel that can pass through locks on all navigable canals is around 60 feet long by just under 7 feet wide. Apart from the Lancaster canal and some canals in Scotland, Wales, the West Country and Ireland, all navigable British canals are connected together and so a boat of the maximum size can go anywhere on the system. Boats that fit the 7 foot gauge are called 'Narrow boats' and not barges or longboats! The system started declining in the middle of the 19th century and by the beginning of the war in 1939 was reduced to a few of the most commercial routes. By the end of the war in 1945 most of the system was in poor repair and freight carrying on the small canals more or less died out by about 1960. I can still remember coal boats on the Grand Union from my school days in the early 1950s.
Why they are still there!: If that was the end of the story we would have little more than a few muddy ditches left by now, or housing estates etc. over much of the country but, inspired by a book 'Narrow boat' by L.T.C.Rolt written during the war and published in 1944, a conservation society formed in 1946. Due to the energetic campaigning of this society, The Inland Waterways Association (IWA), particularly by its founder members, Robert Aickman and Thom Rolt, combined with more practical conservation by the Waterways Recovery Group (WRG) together with many local conservation societies, much of this heritage has been preserved, improved and, sometimes, recovered from almost terminal dereliction. Even now major canals such as the, The Wey and Arun , Thames and Severn and the Montgomery, which were virtually written off 20 years ago, are being brought back to life.
Latest news: is that the Huddersfield narrow canal has been restored including the longest and highest tunnel in England 'Standedge'. Additionally the Rochdale canal has also been reinstated with the deepest lock in the UK replacing two earlier locks at Sowerby bridge. These two canals, together with bits of the Ashton, Huddersfield Broad canal and Calder and Hebble now allow a circular route over the pennine hills. Other exciting completed developments are the repair of the Anderton lift, the construction of the Ribble link to connect the Lancaster canal to the Leeds and Liverpool canal and the new rotating lift 'the FALKIRK WHEEL' to join the Forth and Clyde and Edinburgh Union canals in Scotland. A new project under development is the proposed link between the Great Ouse and the Grand Union Canal in Milton Keynes. As part of this project a unique new lift system has been proposed.
(I should stress that I am not claiming any significant role in this conservation although I am a long-time member of the IWA and have participated in a very few 'digs' (events in which physical restoration is carried out). I have no commercial connections. I have had a dozen or more very happy boating holidays and have walked many miles along local and other canals.)
Eulogy: So what makes them so fascinating for me and 1000s of others? For a start their almost universal availability. Because they are full of industrial archeology: locks, reservoirs, bridges, tunnels, aquaducts, weirs, lifts, inclined planes, factories, mines, wharfs, basins, cottages, toll offices which you can admire and often use yourself if you cruise them. They were mostly built of traditional beautiful materials, ie. stone, brick, iron. They also frequently provide a green linear park running into many of our cities and towns. They are teeming with wild life such as birds, voles, fish and you won't find many canals without a few resident swans, ducks and herons. On our last trip we were accompanied for about a mile by a Kingfisher, one of Britain's most striking birds. Most have a linear footpath along their length 'the towpath' built originally to allow horses to tow the boats which now can be walked (its nearly flat!). They are also enjoyed by anglers and along some of their length they are lived on by occupants of houseboats. They provide a valuable drainage system and are still used for industrial water resources in some places.
Reference Map: I have drafted a rough map of most of the canals of England and Wales that are either navigable now or are being restored together with a key. WARNING - BULKY FILE: .Map and list of canals
I have located and list a few more related sites to follow up if this catches your interest. The usual disclaimers apply and some may be commercially orientated: