Interesting reading about the very earliest history of Canals.
Chalemagne was the first and the greatest unifier of Europe and he saw Canals as a useful way of doing that. Canals in this country are rather in the doldrums. I am not sure the plan to remarket them as nature conservation and leisure areas has been successful. They were fantastically well built at the time, but are now in a pretty poor state of repair and makes one wonder about the purity of the water.



http://www.medievalists.net/2014/12/06/european-weather-extremes-lifetime-charlemagne-c-742-814-ce/#_methods=onPlusOne%2C_ready%2C_close%2C_open%2C_resizeMe%2C_renderstart%2Concircled%2Cdrefresh%2Cerefresh&id=I0_1417930328892&parent=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.medievalists.net&pfname=&rpctoken=20700040

I love walking along the canals, usually ending up in a pub for refreshment. For many years I regularly used the Greyhound at Sutton Stop. Great beer at reasonable price in those days.

The canals are in better shape now than they've been in for years, but certainly not anything like in their heyday.

Where I live there are many ex-boating families that left the canals in the early 60s (the big freeze gave road hauliers the break they needed). I've heard many a tale of life on the water with my drinking buddies; it was a hard life, but many enjoyed it.

One of the guys I regularly talk to gave me a video called Jam 'ole. It was about transporting coal from Atherstone to Kearley and Tonge’s jam factory at Southall. The route took the boats through 5 counties, 194 locks, and covered 246 miles each way. A round trip took 7 days. - Quite long days when you consider boat speeds of about 4mph! My mate Eric' was one of the last to do the run.

Anyone interested might find something similar on youtube.