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We have two kinds of waterways, rivers and
canals. If, when we are driving along, we come to a humped
backed bridge we are likely to be about to cross a canal.
Whilst canals and their narrow boats are now nearly all used
for leisure, their intended purpose was for the movement of
cargo and it made sense.
Here are some relative loads: a horse
carries half a ton, a cart two tons, a tramway
eight tons, but a barge carries fifty tons.
The original plan in building canals was to link the great
rivers. Brindley's aim was to join together the two great
estuaries, one at the east and one at the west of
England
. We have 3.000 miles of navigable water and currently 500
of these are under restoration. The canals were all built by
picks and shovels. The workers were called navigators and it
is from them that we get the word "navvies". They
lived off the land during the construction and the local
farmers locked up their livestock (and their daughters). The
early canals followed the contours of the land. The extra
miles were not a problem for the owners as they charged for
transit by the mile. When,. finally, locks were introduced
they saved many miles. There were various kinds of bridges,
such as lift bridges and swing bridges. As canals
developed so wider canals were built. There were extravagant
sights to be seen when we come upon aqueducts that defy
imagination. We look in awe at the construction of
tunnels. Here there was no towpath, and the men had to
leg it through the tunnels – no mean feat. Our
canals are ,indeed, wonderful examples of engineering genius
Locks are a terrible waste of water and
they slow down the journey. It could take a week to get from
Ware to London. There are flights and staircases of locks as
well as lifts such as the famous Anderton Lift and the
Falkirk Wheel. In time past lockkeepers were fearsome
fellows. Along the Stratford Canal we can still see little
houses with rounded roofs. The lock keepers' houses were
built using the formers from the bridges as roof trusses. To
keep the canals working they need to be dredged and in the
boom times of cargo traffic there would be iceboats to break
a channel for the barges.
So to motive power; at first the boats were
towed by men but from 1760 to the early 2Oth century they
were pulled by horses. When we look at a bridge on a canal
we can see the lines carved into the stone by the passage of
the towropes. It is a kind of sculpture all of its own.
There are several wonderfully designed bridges with
individual ways to enable the horses to pass under. over and
around bridges. By 1870 there were steamboats and in 1911
there were diesel engines.
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For a short time the boatmen were the kings
of transport but that did not last long. Soon the railways
were providing competition and the money earned by the
boatmen was reduced. They needed an unpaid mate and the
family provided this in the form of the boatman's wife. It
was now that the typical narrow boat cabin evolved. There
can be no more economical use of space than this. The ways
in which beds and tables fold under one another and
transform from one piece of furniture to another are truly
ingenious. The families could be quite large and because of
worries about the children it was declared that there should
be no more than two children on any narrow boat. Inspectors
came to see that this was so and children were parcelled out
to others until the inspectors had gone. These children
worked hard. A small child could guide a horse from the age
of five. There were some schools in actual barges and there
are education records that show the attendance of bar gees'
children. The cabins were designed so that one could not
look down into them as one passed from boat to boat. They
were the women' s world. There were often lace plates and
the wonderful roses and castles paintings on buckets and
cans. No one knows where these designs came from. Although they have some similarity to gypsy art from Romania no connection has been found between the canal people and the gypsy population. The buckets, cans and dippers were very important to the canal people, as they had to be very frugal with water.
Before the beginning of the Second World War the end was in sight for the commercial use of the canals. In 1948 they were nationalised. The opening of the
M1, which made road transport from London to Birmingham so much easier, was the
final nail in the coffin. It did look as if the canals could just disappear. However there were rays of hope. The Inland Waterways Association was formed in 1945 and there were individuals like Tom Rolt who championed the cause. A major clean up was started in the 1960s. One canal to be reopened was the Kennet and Avon. The hire of narrow boats for pleasure has grown and there are gatherings like the Little Venice Festival. There are still some narrow boats with a traditional boatman's cabin but most are set out in a much roomier manner. There will be a bathroom, bedroom with a double bed, galley, lounge complete with television and an engine room. They can be used as a permanent home and cost less than a house. £ 150,000 to £200,000 will buy a very nice boat. Moorings can be expensive. One can tie up on the towpath side of a canal for 10 to 14 days. The closer one gets to civilisation the harder it is to
find a mooring but out in the wilds it is difficult to get water or to empty chemical toilets. Most people on a holiday boat fill up with water every day. For those with permanent moorings fees are paid to British Waterways. |
