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UK Counties without canal navigations


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On 30/01/2023 at 17:14, magpie patrick said:

If we're talking navigable canals I don't think Durham, Nothumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Suffolk or Dorset ever had a navigable canal. I

There are/were locks on the Gipping and I understood that barges used to be able to get up to Stowmarket once upon a time? Is this wrong?

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15 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

There are/were locks on the Gipping and I understood that barges used to be able to get up to Stowmarket once upon a time? Is this wrong?

 There were indeed, but I was referring to canals

 

As is often the case we have been having several different conversations in one thread! Since posting that I've switched to referring to canals and non-tidal navigable rivers - it appears that only Dorset out of the English Counties has had neither, although I'm not sure about Northumberland. County Durham now has the Tees above the barrage as a non-tidal navigable river. 

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48 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

But Leighton Buzzard is in Beds

 

25 minutes ago, Tonka said:

Linslade is in Bucks


I think it’s probably the case that the canal never enters what is officially/traditionally Leighton Buzzard and only passes through Linslade. I’m not entirely sure about that but I’m assuming the River Ouzel forms the boundary between the old ceremonial counties of Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire and there is no doubt that Leighton Buzzard was in Beds and Linslade in Bucks, and that the canal is always to the west of the Ouzel. Administratively both towns are now part of Bedfordshire.

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8 hours ago, Tonka said:

Conwy has no canals 

 

8 hours ago, LadyG said:

Kinross-shire, the second smallest county in Scotland .

 

 Once we get into Wales and Scotland defining "county" gets a whole lot more complicated, especially in Wales

Scotland had a very good set of counties until reorganisation in the 1970's when they binned the concept and went for councils 

 

Wales gets even more confused - they have reinvented twice, and some of their original counties had very old origins - for ceremonial purposes they've adopted the counties that existed for only 22 years between 1974 and 1996. 

 

In both cases there will be more counties with no canal or navigable river than in England, but the Welsh in particular had some dinky little canals in surprising places! 

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38 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

 

 Once we get into Wales and Scotland defining "county" gets a whole lot more complicated, especially in Wales

Scotland had a very good set of counties until reorganisation in the 1970's when they binned the concept and went for councils 

 

Wales gets even more confused - they have reinvented twice, and some of their original counties had very old origins - for ceremonial purposes they've adopted the counties that existed for only 22 years between 1974 and 1996. 

 

In both cases there will be more counties with no canal or navigable river than in England, but the Welsh in particular had some dinky little canals in surprising places! 

Surely in Wales they would be Corgie rather then Dinky

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Until the London boroughs were reorganized in the mid-1960's, the county of Kent extended right across the Thames to North Woolwich in two places, where the river flowed through, not by, the county. The Western one was home to the Northern terminal.of the Woolwich Free Ferry, while the Eastern one extended a little way up the Roding Valley and encompassed the locks of the  Eastern entrances to the Royal Docks.   

Edited by Ronaldo47
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9 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:


What canal was in Rutland, if any?

 

@MtB the list MP refers to is the one in the post I quoted above. We’ve since discounted Cumberland and Westmorland.

 

The Oakham Canal was in Rutlland.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakham_Canal#:~:text=The Oakham Canal ran from,the East Midlands of England.

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https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/65c4a277-6327-459e-bbc1-bf4db5f4b67e

 

CANAL FROM HEXHAM TO STELLA

 

Course of Canal from Hexham in Northumberland along the south side of the River Tyne. to Stella in Co. Durham, passing through Northumberland parishes and townships of Hexham, Dilston, Corbridge, Riding, Broomhaugh, Broomley, Stocksfield, Mickley, Eltringham, Brudhoe Castle, Wylam.

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20 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/65c4a277-6327-459e-bbc1-bf4db5f4b67e

 

CANAL FROM HEXHAM TO STELLA

 

Course of Canal from Hexham in Northumberland along the south side of the River Tyne. to Stella in Co. Durham, passing through Northumberland parishes and townships of Hexham, Dilston, Corbridge, Riding, Broomhaugh, Broomley, Stocksfield, Mickley, Eltringham, Brudhoe Castle, Wylam.

 So it looks like Northumberland did have a canal, although it's not clear when - no trace as far as I can see on the OS 25 inch map which suggests it had vanished by around 1900

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15 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Was it ever built? Or was this just a proposal?

 

I read it as only being a plan rather than having been dug.

 

There's another one linked from there too:

 

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/5cf9dab8-41fc-40da-8852-53eca81d2cd3

 

CANAL FROM NEWCASTLE TO HAYDON BRIDGE

 

Course of Canal from Newcastle to Haydon Bridge passing through the Northumberland Townships of Newcastle (Town Moor Elswick, Benwell, East Denton, West Denton, Newburn Hall, Walbottle, Newburn, Throckley, Heddon-on-the-wall, Houghton and Close House, Wylam, Horsley, Ovingham, Ovington, Bearl, Bywell St. Peter, East Acomb, Newton Hall, Styford, Thornbrough, Corbridge, Anick, Sandhoe, Anick Grange, West Acomb, Barden, Newbrough and Haydon (near Haydon Bridge).

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There are two questions which need to be answered before the OP's question, itself, can be answered. The first is: What is a canal? Should you include river navigations, and if so should those where the channel has been improved without locks be included. Speaking to canal historians elsewhere in Europe, I have often be asked what is the difference between a 'canal' and a 'channel', which is quite difficult to explain with any certainty. The other questions is: What area is covered by the term 'UK'. At the time canals were being built in any number, the whole of Ireland was part of the UK. A look at the late Brian Goggin's irish canal pages, https://irishwaterwayshistory.com, will show what a variety of schemes were actually undertaken there. I would expect a similar story in England, given the number of isolated canals/navigations which are known.

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22 minutes ago, Pluto said:

There are two questions which need to be answered before the OP's question, itself, can be answered. The first is: What is a canal? Should you include river navigations, and if so should those where the channel has been improved without locks be included. Speaking to canal historians elsewhere in Europe, I have often be asked what is the difference between a 'canal' and a 'channel', which is quite difficult to explain with any certainty. The other questions is: What area is covered by the term 'UK'. At the time canals were being built in any number, the whole of Ireland was part of the UK. A look at the late Brian Goggin's irish canal pages, https://irishwaterwayshistory.com, will show what a variety of schemes were actually undertaken there. I would expect a similar story in England, given the number of isolated canals/navigations which are known.

A navigation is a canalised river  as in The River Wey Navigation

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35 minutes ago, Pluto said:

There are two questions which need to be answered before the OP's question, itself, can be answered. The first is: What is a canal? Should you include river navigations, and if so should those where the channel has been improved without locks be included. Speaking to canal historians elsewhere in Europe, I have often be asked what is the difference between a 'canal' and a 'channel', which is quite difficult to explain with any certainty. The other questions is: What area is covered by the term 'UK'. At the time canals were being built in any number, the whole of Ireland was part of the UK. A look at the late Brian Goggin's irish canal pages, https://irishwaterwayshistory.com, will show what a variety of schemes were actually undertaken there. I would expect a similar story in England, given the number of isolated canals/navigations which are known.

 That's partly why I adopted "non-tidal" as my definition

 

I think when considering the penetration of canals and non-tidal river navigations one really needs to consider the constituent countries of the UK separately - England had close to a national network, Wales's canals were either  extensions to England's Network or were largely isolated from each other, Scotland had connected canals in the central lowlands and some other canals not connected to each other or to England's canals, Ireland, like England, had something resembling a national system. 

In addition, given where Heartland started, we need to consider the definition of "county" - only those in the Republic of Ireland remain with their boundaries largely unchanged, elsewhere measures varying from tinkering to wholesale redefinition have occured!

 

 

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39 minutes ago, Tonka said:

A navigation is a canalised river  as in The River Wey Navigation

What is a canalised river? The Cambridge Dictionary does not seem to know. It is a very generalised term which does not differentiate between rivers which have been improved by locks, and those where just the channel has been improved. The latter can be on inland non-tidal sections of water and do not necessarily have to have an Act of Parliament.

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Just now, Pluto said:

What is a canalised river? The Cambridge Dictionary does not seem to know. It is a very generalised term which does not differentiate between rivers which have been improved by locks, and those where just the channel has been improved. The latter can be on inland non-tidal sections of water and do not necessarily have to have an Act of Parliament.

a river with canal sections. If you look at the River Wey for example there are Canal sections as in Send & Addlestone for example

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It has been an interesting discussion that borders on semantics. Yet it started with a simple question as to the accuracy of the late Edward Paget Tomlinson's statement.

 

Yet there is a valid set of points as to what is a canal, a river navigation or a navigation generally. Edward's statement was about trade on canals with England in focus, River navigations is perhaps a more complex situation as they can include the coastal river estuaries or even sections of a river inland from the coast.  This become complex when that river is altered and may be include a lock. 

 

With Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and even Southern Ireland there are the man made waterways, like in England and taking all the separate examples into account it is clear that interpretation is needed as Pluto makes clear.

 

Even with canal there can be river sections such as exist on the Caldon, Droitwich, Grand Union and Oxford. So is the question needed to be altered to say Inland Navigation and separate it from the Salt Water type that links with the coastal routes

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8 hours ago, Tonka said:

a river with canal sections. If you look at the River Wey for example there are Canal sections as in Send & Addlestone for example

There is the River Wye, which was navigable, yet had no locks, while most of the canal sections on the River Douglas are now considered part of the river, with the bends they avoided now filled in, though still forming parish boundaries.

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1 hour ago, Heartland said:

It has been an interesting discussion that borders on semantics. Yet it started with a simple question as to the accuracy of the late Edward Paget Tomlinson's statement.

 

Yet there is a valid set of points as to what is a canal, a river navigation or a navigation generally. Edward's statement was about trade on canals with England in focus, River navigations is perhaps a more complex situation as they can include the coastal river estuaries or even sections of a river inland from the coast.  This become complex when that river is altered and may be include a lock. 

 

With Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and even Southern Ireland there are the man made waterways, like in England and taking all the separate examples into account it is clear that interpretation is needed as Pluto makes clear.

 

Even with canal there can be river sections such as exist on the Caldon, Droitwich, Grand Union and Oxford. So is the question needed to be altered to say Inland Navigation and separate it from the Salt Water type that links with the coastal routes

There is also the factor of time. The discussion has centred on primarily on the canal age onwards, but if you consider river navigations in particular, the process of improvement can actually reduce the facility for occasional upstream navigation. The Suffolk/Essex Stour for example had a head of navigation in the modern era at Sudbury. However, before it was improved by the construction of locks, the occasional coincidence of heavy rain on a spring tide would allow the water level to rise sufficiently for navigation well upstream. The head of navigation in Roman times is reputed to have been at the edge of my land, with some evidence to that effect from a few hundred yards downstream. I am sure the same effect would have been experienced on other rivers. In a similar vein, the whole of the fens have altered completely through drainage, creating and removing navigation routes in the process. I would guess the same would apply on a smaller scale in other coastal marshy areas (the Isle of Grain is, for example, no longer an island).

 

Alec

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On 29/01/2023 at 22:24, MtB said:

I can't recall any canals in Sussex or Kent.

 

Although the term 'working waterways' used in the question is different from the term used in the thread title. 

 

Or any on the Isle of Wight, come to think about it.

 

 

 

If we are including waterways the Isle of Wight has at least one

image.png.62f8b1e2cfc52ad7579f7c91d75a814c.png

 

 

 

 

image.png.dfd6982b9e0b24c06582f135c8b32f22.png

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If this discussion was limited to canals instead of river navigations the following list for England might be used taking one example of a canal for each county:

 

Canals

Berkshire                     Wilts and Berks Canal

Buckinghamshire         Grand Junction Canal, Old Stratford and Buckingham Branch

Cheshire                      Macclesfield Canal     

Cornwall                      St Columbs Canal

Cumberland                 Carlisle Canal

Derbyshire                   Cromford Canal

Devon                          Exeter Canal

Essex                           Chelmer and Blackwater Canal

Flintshire                      Ellesmere and Chester Canal, Frwdd branch- the only piece of the canal north of Wrexham to be completed

Gloucestershire            Stroudwater  Canal

Hampshire                   Andover Canal

Herefordshire              Hereford and Gloucester Canal

Hertfordshire               Grand Junction Canal

Kent                             Royal Military Canal

Lancashire                   St Helens Canal

Leicestershire               Ashby Canal

Lincolnshire                 Alford Canal

Middlesex                    Grand Junction Canal, Paddington Branch

Norfolk                                    Dilham and North Walsham Canal

Northamptonshire        Old Union Canal

Nottinghamshire          Grantham Canal

Oxfordshire                 Oxford Canal

Rutland                                    Oakham Canal

Shropshire                   Shrewsbury Canal

Somerset                      Chard Canal

Staffordshire                Trent and Mersey Canal

Surrey                          Basingstoke Canal

Sussex                          Wey and Arun Canal

Warwickshire               Warwick and Birmingham Canal

Westmorland               Lancaster Canal

Wiltshire                      Kennet and Avon Canal

Worcestershire             Droitwich Canal

Yorkshire                     Bradford Canal

 

 Others-           

Bedfordshire                River navigations included the Shefford canalised branch of River Ivel Navigation (F Giles Engineer)

Cambridgeshire            River navigations

Durham                       River navigations- the Stockton Canal (Whitworth & Brindley ) was finally completed as a railway

Huntingdon                 River navigations

Northumberland          River navigations

Suffolk                          River navigations

 

Dorset                          none, only coastal navigation

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