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Pointless Canals


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1 hour ago, 1st ade said:

I wonder what other names it was called...

 

There was a piece in Navvies a while back about unappealing canal names around the world. It did point out that the BCN has some less desirable names with "Chemical Arm" and "Gas Street Basin" (which I once heard described as "Gastric Basin"}, while across the pond they have the Dismal Swamp Canal.

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Gastric Basin is perhaps not the best name. That basin was part of the BCN from Broad Street to Bridge Street, and prior to the making of the Gasworks, there were  side basins and warehouses used the merchandise carriers. The Birmingham Timber Co also had a side basin.

 

Some of the locations adjacent to the location called Bug Hole which is mentioned in local board minutes   

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On 22/01/2020 at 15:17, buccaneer66 said:

Have a look on this map http://www.railmaponline.com/Canals.php I mapped it a while ago but have yet to add features to it.

Visited a friend in Brimfield in 1979 - we found one portal of Putnal Field Tunnel (in the middle of a field), and the remains of the aqueduct over the river Teme, the TA had apparently blown up the centre arch as an "exercise". I remember the embankment approaching the aqueduct branching off from the railway which had been built on the old canal line. The tunnel was really small cross section, the aqueduct really substantial - quite a contrast. I have a couple of slides, which I have photographed, the images are not brilliant I'm afraid.

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Edited by Richard Carter
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I spent a day poking around the Leominster Canal, photographing the remains - the occasional in-water patch, the random embankment, the blown-up aqueduct, the inexplicably difficult tunnel. It was when I was working as assistant editor of Canal Boat magazine and had decided to write an article about it. Lots of traipsing around fields and taking photos. I got a few funny glances, but that's par for the course when you're sniffing around obscure canals in the middle of nowhere - I guess I'd technically been trespassing on occasion and landowners are a bit sensitive about that.

 

On the way home, I thought I'd stop in Leominster and buy a few nice bottles from the specialist cider shop there. "It's good to know you can still buy a decent pint even though the end of the world is imminent," said the shop assistant while I was paying. Ok, seems like a slightly pessimistic angle to take on life, but hey, you do you.

 

Driving back along the A44, I switched on the radio somewhere around Bromyard. It was a news programme, which seemed weird for that time of day. Apparently some people had flown planes into buildings in America that morning.

 

Oh.

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  • 6 months later...

Another started-but-not-finished canal is the proposed canalisation of the River Rom in Essex, which would have linked Romford's Ind Coope brewery with the Thames. Most of the bridges on the route seem to have been (re)built with plenty of air draft in anticipation, including the "tunnel" under Romford station through the railway embankment, and a start was made on constructing a lock next to what later became the Ford factory. I remember seeing an old map with its lower course labelled as "unused canal". I have a vague recollection of reading that its construction was halted due to the outbreak of the First World War and never resumed.

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On 23/01/2020 at 07:43, magpie patrick said:

I may be biased as I'm west country based and I luurve our wacky, odd ball waterways, but I think you're confusing "pointless" with small strictly local concerns. The Cann Quarry canal served a useful purpose getting stone to the effective inland limit for barges on the tidal river Plym, the Tavistock feed Morwellham Quay and connected Tavistock to the outside world (although the Mill Hill Branch wasn't exactly a success. That said I've never really understood what the Par Canal was for.

 

The St Columb Canal stands head and shoulders above the rest in being singularly useless - I still have a soft spot for it though.

 

Edited to add,  as far as I know only two navigations were named after their principal cargo, The Somersetshire Coal Canal and The Tamar Manure Navigation. 

 

Further edited to add - small local concerns on the edge of the Kingdom are fascinating and diverse even if I dispute that they are pointless!

 

 

There is a large lorry company in Essex called TMC Haulage which was formed as the Tiptree Manure Company!

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