Same Canal but different names

[Heartland]

It is not uncommon to find that a canal has, or had, different names. The BCN from Parkhead to Hawne basin, for example was built for the Dudley Canal as their extension to Selly Oak. The canal was also known as the Netherton Canal, or the Dudley & Netherton Canal, through the fact that it passed the coal mines there and conveyed coal from these mines. Some times a local name was applied. Those that took boats up the Rushall Branch of the BCN called it the Ganzey as the cold weather encountered on that stretch led to the need to wear warm clothing. it would be of interest to see what little known names have existed for our waterways .

[magpie patrick]

The Coal Canal, or to give it its full title "The Somersetshire Coal Canal" was originally the "Proposed Dunkerton and Radstock Canal"

More familiar to many, The Kennet and Avon Canal was mooted as "The Western Canal"

[David Mack]

After the Birmingham Canal Company took over the project to build a canal to Fazeley they renamed themselves as "The Birmingham and Birmingham and Fazeley Canal Company", a cumbersome name which they soon changed to "The Birmingham Canal Navigations".

[BEngo]

The Grand Trunk Canal AKA the Trent and Mersey Canal.

 

The South end of the Lancaster canal, partly swallowed by the canal from Leeds to Liverpool.

 

The various names applied to the (various parts of) canal currently commonly called "The Llangollen"

 

The Mon and Brec I think is also a composite modern name.

N

[JamesWoolcock]

The Grand Trunk Canal went one further than the Trent & Mersey to many boatmen.

The canal proprietors had approached the fledgling North Staffordshire Railway before they had even laid a track, with a proposition that the companies merge. The result was an astonishingly lucrative and long lived deal for the T&M shareholders.

At the merger, not a takeover as in popular belief, the canal headquarters moved from Westbridge House in Stone to the new railway headquarters in Stoke on Trent and over the years most, if not all of the notices, posters  etc for the canal carried the initials NSR or indeed, North Staffordshire Railway. 

It was often known on the cut to boatmen as the North Stafford.

Edited December 2, 2021 by JamesWoolcock
Typo from the pub

[Chris Lowe]

26 minutes ago, BEngo said:

The various names applied to the (various parts of) canal currently commonly called "The Llangollen"

A chunk of that is the Ellesmere canal which was never completed.

[JamesWoolcock]

Wasn't it all? And Chester to EP?

[Rose Narrowboats]

18 minutes ago, BEngo said:

The Grand Trunk Canal AKA the Trent and Mersey Canal.

 

The South end of the Lancaster canal, partly swallowed by the canal from Leeds to Liverpool.

 

The various names applied to the (various parts of) canal currently commonly called "The Llangollen"

 

The Mon and Brec I think is also a composite modern name.

N

The "Mon & Brec" moniker came about, I was reliably informed by someone there at the time, because the deeds etc. relating to said canals were held at Melbury House in a large ex-GWR file marked Monmouthshire and Breconshire Canals". At some point people within BWB got careless with the use of the "s" and the modern name was born.

 

That name, along with the Staffs. & Worcester Canal, and "towpath" were all things I was educated not to say from a young age  - I just wish I could remember all of it!

[Chris Lowe]

7 minutes ago, JamesWoolcock said:

Wasn't it all? And Chester to EP?

Ellesmere canal main line should have gone from Ellesmere to Shrewbury, the unfinished truncated bits of the main line are the Trevor arm and the Weston arm, so part of what we now call the Montgomery canal was also the Ellesmere canal as far as Llanymynech.

[Ray T]

When I visit “my” retired narrowboat captain I have to use boaters names for canals as he doesn’t recognise recent incarnations.

 

[Hudds Lad]

In my very early youth i thought the stretch of Calder & Hebble down at Cooper Bridge was called The Bloody Canal, as when playing with my cousins when visiting my Mum’s parents at Bradley we were always told to “keep off the railway lines and stay away from that bloody canal”

[Athy]

The Ashby Canal was known by boatmen as "The Moira Cut" - an accurate name, as it went to Moira but never reached Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

[Captain Pegg]

The Droitwich Canals would fit this category, a new collective name for two distinct waterways. Although the constituent parts are also referred to as the Droitwich Junction Canal and the Droitwich Barge Canal, the latter is not a name derived from any legal document. Indeed for 83 years it was the only canal to Droitwich so it seems unlikely there was any need to refer to it as a 'barge' canal which I suspect came later to distinguish it from the newer narrow canal. The enabling act refers to  "the proprietors of the Droitwich Canal Navigation". Presumably the description 'canal navigation' being used to distinguish it from either or both the River Severn navigation to which it linked or the River Salwarpe which it parallels and was/is navigable to some extent.

[magpie patrick]

27 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

Indeed for 83 years it was the only canal to Droitwich so it seems unlikely there was any need to refer to it as a 'barge' canal which I suspect came later to distinguish it from the newer narrow canal. The enabling act refers to  "the proprietors of the Droitwich Canal Navigation". Presumably the description 'canal navigation' being used to distinguish it from either or both the River Severn navigation to which it linked or the River Salwarpe which it parallels and was/is navigable to some extent.

 

Similarly the Huddersfield Narrow Canal which is officially The Huddersfield Canal, so called to distinguish it from the Huddersfield Broad Canal which is officially Sir John Ramsden's Canal (I think)

[Captain Pegg]

1 hour ago, Athy said:

The Ashby Canal was known by boatmen as "The Moira Cut" - an accurate name, as it went to Moira but never reached Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

 

Similarly what we now know as the Llangollen was referred to as "The Welsh Cut". I have a couple of family records for folk born in places on that canal which despite being in England are recorded as being in Wales. It suggests that there may have been assumption on the part of boaters that anywhere on the Welsh cut must be in Wales.

[Heartland]

James- said

The Grand Trunk Canal went one further than the Trent & Mersey to many boatmen.

The canal proprietors had approached the fledgling North Staffordshire Railway before they had even laid a track, with a proposition that the companies merge. The result was an astonishingly lucrative and long lived deal for the T&M shareholders.

At the merger, not a takeover as in popular belief, the canal headquarters moved from Westbridge House in Stone to the new railway headquarters in Stoke on Trent and over the years most, if not all of the notices, posters  etc for the canal carried the initials NSR or indeed, North Staffordshire Railway. 

It was often known on the cut to boatmen as the North Stafford.

 

I did explain some of this in my recent Trent and Mersey Book

In the book I mention another name the Staffordshire Canal, which Cheshire people would call it and mention it in sales adverts for canlside properties in Cheshire.

 

[Captain Pegg]

Most canals seem to be known by the name they had upon nationalisation but there are lots of inconsistencies.

 

For example the Birmingham & Fazeley name has endured even though the company itself never even owned an actual canal, having joined with the Birmingham Canal Company before they had perhaps even cut the first sod. Even the cumbersome inclusion of the Birmingham & Fazeley name into the combined enterprise failed to see out the 18th century yet over 200 years later the name still endures and doubtless many folk don't realise it's part of the BCN. There are probably a number of similar instances on the BCN, I guess because it is seen as a conglomeration of individual canals rather than as a single canal, yet the same doesn't apply to the Grand Union network.

 

The GU is really the expanded empire of the Regent's Canal and while the major constituent - the Grand Junction - took on the new name that name isn't applied to the Regent's itself or to it's acquisition of the Erewash Canal and Soar Navigation, while it is applied to the adjacent constituents of the Leicester line (Leicester & Northampton Union and (old) Grand Union). Although these had been absorbed into the Grand Junction company in the interim. The (old) Grand Union is perhaps an example of the same canal having the same - but different - name at various parts of it's existence. These names are long forgotten by many and often the whole Norton to Leicester section is referred to as the Leicester line although it is rather obviously comprised of quite different canals. 

 

Similarly so the Warwick & Napton and Warwick & Birmingham names - which were private enterprises until less than 20 years before nationalisation - but whose names have largely disappeared such that it doesn't seem to be common knowledge that the GU south of Braunston and north of Napton have vastly different histories and that the 5 miles between them isn't actually part of the GU at all. Whether these two canals fit the description of 'same canal, different name' though is perhaps up for debate since following purchase the GU proceeded to ruin them.

 

But perhaps we should be glad of these inconsistencies because taking the general rule that a canal is named for the company that owns it, the 2,000 miles of the core network today would be referred to simply as 'The Canal & River Trust Canal'

 

[David Mack]

2 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

 

For example the Birmingham & Fazeley name has endured even though the company itself never even owned an actual canal, having joined with the Birmingham Canal Company before they had perhaps even cut the first sod. Even the cumbersome inclusion of the Birmingham & Fazeley name into the combined enterprise failed to see out the 18th century yet over 200 years later the name still endures and doubtless many folk don't realise it's part of the BCN.

And of course the various bits of the original Birmingham Canal got renamed Oozells Street Loop, Icknield Port Road Wharf Loop Line, Soho Loop, Old Main Line and Wednesbury Oak Loop after the route was straightened (and those are just the bits which are still navigable).

[magpie patrick]

12 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

 

taking the general rule that a canal is named for the company that owns it,

 

 

That begs the question as to where did the company get the name from? The Somersetshire Coal Canal is rather grand given it serves only a tiny area of that county, although it does serve most, but by no means all, of the Somerset Coal Field (the Shire was added as they thought it less likely to attract objections in parliament) 

 

The subdivisions provide interesting material - not many refer to the Caldon Branch (of the T&M) - it's now the Caldon Canal, and yet few if any refer to "The Aylesbury Canal", it's the Aylesbury Arm.  

I think most people who haven't studied the history define the BCN by character, they would probably be surprised that Camp Hill and Garrison locks are not in it, nor is the Stourbridge Canal, they would be equally surprised that Fazeley to Whittington technically is (or was) part of the BCN 

[Captain Pegg]

17 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

 

That begs the question as to where did the company get the name from? The Somersetshire Coal Canal is rather grand given it serves only a tiny area of that county, although it does serve most, but by no means all, of the Somerset Coal Field (the Shire was added as they thought it less likely to attract objections in parliament) 

 

The subdivisions provide interesting material - not many refer to the Caldon Branch (of the T&M) - it's now the Caldon Canal, and yet few if any refer to "The Aylesbury Canal", it's the Aylesbury Arm.  

I think most people who haven't studied the history define the BCN by character, they would probably be surprised that Camp Hill and Garrison locks are not in it, nor is the Stourbridge Canal, they would be equally surprised that Fazeley to Whittington technically is (or was) part of the BCN 

 

I did anticipate that some more learned members than I may take issue with that statement but I think in general it's true and also that perhaps no company ever officially named it's canal. For instance what would the boaters and public naturally call the canal that went to Oxford and displayed notices bearing the legend 'Oxford Canal Company'?

 

That would explain the variances i.e. there is no absolutely right or wrong name of any canal.

 

I completely agree with your points on the BCN, the Stourbridge is BCN and the B&F isn't by environment. Although in other ways - such as lock furniture - the B&F is more BCN than the Stourbridge, which has a kinship with the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal. There are ultimately no rules for what a BCN canal looks like other than the one defining feature - that the canal was owned by the BCN. It also brings to mind that while I was cruising the Birmingham & Warwick Junction recently (whose name strangely reverses order of the main line, the Warwick & Birmingham) my father kept referring to it as the Saltley Canal which is how we referred to it when we first went that way in the early 80s. He had great trouble trying to comprehend which canal we were on as we traversed through Salford, Bordesley, Proof House, Aston and Farmers' Bridge junctions to finally arrive at that place whose name has filled an entire thread on the forum.

[Pluto]

13 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

But perhaps we should be glad of these inconsistencies because taking the general rule that a canal is named for the company that owns it, the 2,000 miles of the core network today would be referred to simply as 'The Canal & River Trust Canal'

 

You need to be a bit more specific, as the name used is usually that at nationalisation. Names did change, particularly for the more successful canals when company legislation changed in the second half of the 19th century. For example, The Undertakers of the Douglas Navigation and Company of Proprietors of the Canal Navigation from Leeds to Liverpool changed their name to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Company in 1893 after they had purchased thew last two outstanding Douglas Navigation shares. In the same period the Company of Proprietors of the Navigation of the River Dun and the Company of Proprietors of the Sheffield Canal became the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation.

[Captain Pegg]

1 minute ago, Pluto said:

You need to be a bit more specific, as the name used is usually that at nationalisation. 

 

Go back and read all of the post you selectively quoted from.

[magpie patrick]

53 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

 

I did anticipate that some more learned members than I..

 

 

I'm blushing now! 

 

Don't be fooled by the qualifications, I make it up as I go along... 😄

[Captain Pegg]

9 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

 

I'm blushing now! 

 

Don't be fooled by the qualifications, I make it up as I go along... 😄

 

I didn't think you were taking issue tbh, just building upon it. I think there's always a fine line in this field between absolute accuracy and making the subject accessible and discussable.

[Pluto]

4 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

 

Go back and read all of the post you selectively quoted from.

I was just pointing out that the legal title for individual canals was often more detailed than the names used more generally, but probably only appeared in legal documents. When the Waterways Archive was put on a more professional footing twenty years ago, they did create a list with variations of canal 'titles' so that documents, either legal or non-legal, could be linked to the particular canal they concerned whatever the name used.