the uk canal network

[Guest]

Didnt the 'lockmaster maps' do this to good effect??

 

 

Thanks for this - just googled them though and they look like bog standard canal maps. Couldn't see any refernce to disused sections which is what I was after.

Edited November 14, 2009 by MJG

[carlt]

"The other 60 miles" by Richard Chester-Browne is an excellent book about the abandoned canals of the BCN.

[Guest]

"The other 60 miles" by Richard Chester-Browne is an excellent book about the abandoned canals of the BCN.

Thanks Carl

[carlt]

Thanks Carl

You're welcome.

 

You can even have a link:

 

HNBOC

 

I've got a feeling I paid more than this, thinking it was no longer available.

[Hairy-Neil]

"The other 60 miles" by Richard Chester-Browne is an excellent book about the abandoned canals of the BCN.

 

Especially when used in conjunction with Google Earth......

[magpie patrick]

Just to take this for a second.

 

Is there any map publication or series of maps that shows the routes of all the disused parts of the system??

 

Not that I want to start digging them out or anything I just have an interest in tracing the old routes and where access permits visiting parts of them.

 

(Strangely Jan doesn't share this interest)

 

there are some good ones but none that are infallible, and the varying scale (wilts and berks or glamorgan canal at the long end, elongtaed basins at the other) means one map will always struggle.

 

There is a Geo-Projects map of the whole system that does pretty well for showing where they are, you then need more research to track them down on the ground. I find the best approach is once you've targetted a canal research it with the help of books like "Lost Canals of Britain" and OS maps, especially 1:25000 and 1950's/60's one inch.

 

If you feel like venturing this far south I'll give you a whistke stop tour of the Somersetshire Coal Canal

[Keeping Up]

If you feel like venturing this far south I'll give you a whistke stop tour of the Somersetshire Coal Canal

I first read this as a "whisky stop tour" and was just about to set off for Somerset.

[Neil TNC]

Did I read somewhere, on here, that the TNC have disbanded?

 

 

Did I read somewhere, on here, that the TNC have disbanded?

 

Well evolving.

 

Nick Branson starts the design work on barge Maurice A starts on Monday (or it is rumoured).

NB Earnest is returning from Ireland under the bannership of Mrs TNC.

Earnest comes back home, Maurice A plate kit (and another) TNC class barge kit goes back to Riversdale on the NI trombone trailer.

This would be at the beginning of March.

There is a possibility that a NB could go back to Ireland on top of the plate kits, if anyone was interested. Graham at Riversdale has done this before :-)

During the build of Maurice A I could well attempt the newly resored stuff that has occured while Earnest has been away (amazingly it will be three years).

Probably best ASAP, before the system falls to bits.

 

Keeping on topic, if anyone wants to dredge through

http://www.tuesdaynightclub.co.uk/

The whole "connected" English (and the Scottish Highland canals) are covered...well the interesting bits...up to 2006, bit low on content of say the Grand Union.

Also all the "connected" Irish waterways, apart from the Royal, which although now connected at both ends, is not yet open, while waterways Ireland phaff about.

[Neil TNC]

You can take or leave the Middle Levels but no serious boater should skip the Huddersfield... Hard work how? Is it harder than the Rochdale or the Leeds and Liverpool (I don't know, as I haven't yet attempted the latter two), but I know that the only lock that's ever defeated me was on the GU. As for Standedge, we got through with paintwork intact, though that was back in the days of electric tugs and rubber sheets... do they still have the rubber sheets?

 

Eeeek!...Middle Level Shirley?

We were told off by the Middle Level Chief Engineer for calling his drains the Middle Levels.

At the time he was rather grumpy because he had just dropped his glasses in the quagmire that was Horseway Lock.

He was visiting to assist us with freeing *the* totally rusted up paddle on a bottom gate.

He never found his specs, even after th ML lads cleared out the chamber and repaired the bottom gates.

(what a waste that was, AFAIK only two IWA boats got through after us.)

[Neil TNC]

I did for 5 years from 1992 to mid 1997, scribbling about it for Waterways’ World on a regular basis and Canal Boat on occasion. One thing I didn’t do, and I don’t know why, was the Calder and Hebble. Also, we never got to do the Manchester Ship Canal. I, together with my then partner, Sian, explored not just the main system but many backwaters, particularly in the fens. We also explored derelict waterways, walking most of the Thames and Severn wih a healthy disregard for the laws of trespass. At the time there was no navigable Rochdale or Huddersfield Narrow, and the Ribble Link was not built.

 

We then went on to explore just about every bit of the Irish system – published in Canal an Riverboat although I never got to submit the Lough Erne article unfortunately.

 

I can’t say I would avoid any of it. You pick and choose your stopping points in some areas. All of it is worth exploring, and each person will doubtless gain something different from another by doing so.

 

It was an eye opening way to explore England (and the little bit of Wales you can get to) in a way that you could never experience in a car.

 

The boat was 58ft 6in, by the way, and we never struggled at that length.

 

The Tuesday Night lads also explored tidal creeks and stuff in places like the Thames estuary, and on reflection, I wish I had too.

 

I also had similar trouble with Canal Boat

Boring stuff, those out of the way waterways, and stuff still in the British Isles.

 

58ft 6ins is a good length for a NB.

 

The tightest turn we ever did was in Ramsey Basin. This involved three blokes pulling the bow up the piling and levering the stern round, with one of out rather OT C&H handspikes.

Tidal Creeks are good, soon that is all we may have left open over here.

Spurred along by Mr Idleness, we did eventually (in a mates yot) did Havengore Creek / bottom of the Roach, something I always wanted to do in Earnest.

When Maurice A is finished, I shall attempt to *not* remove the wheehouse, go down Adrnacrusha / Abbey River and explore the Shannon Estuary.

We have been doing a lot of research, there are a good few tidal offshoots to do, the Maigue up to Adare, the Deel up to Askeaton and the Fergus up to Newmarket-On-Fergus and Kilrush Marina, in the dammed up inlet.

 

If I have an ambition now it's to see some of Ireland's waterways.

 

Tim

 

How about in a nice new barge?

[Chertsey]

Eeeek!...Middle Level Shirley?

We were told off by the Middle Level Chief Engineer for calling his drains the Middle Levels.

At the time he was rather grumpy because he had just dropped his glasses in the quagmire that was Horseway Lock.

He was visiting to assist us with freeing *the* totally rusted up paddle on a bottom gate.

He never found his specs, even after th ML lads cleared out the chamber and repaired the bottom gates.

(what a waste that was, AFAIK only two IWA boats got through after us.)

I think you are probably right, sorry.

 

Our boat* was built was built short enough to go through Horseway Lock, and low enough to go under Ramsey Hollow Bridge, both qualities now sadly redundant, though it does mean that we too can wind at the top of the High Lode.

 

*Not the one in the avatar though.

Edited November 15, 2009 by WarriorWoman

[magpie patrick]

I first read this as a "whisky stop tour" and was just about to set off for Somerset.

It can be that if you wish

 

Am rather partial, as Val will tell you

[MartinClark]

If you feel like venturing this far south I'll give you a whistke stop tour of the Somersetshire Coal Canal

 

I wish you had said that a week ago - I was in Monkton Combe and Winsley on Wednesday and would have loved to have seen some of the Somersetshire Coal canal highlights!

[fender]

Thanks for this - just googled them though and they look like bog standard canal maps. Couldn't see any refernce to disused sections which is what I was after.

 

NO they are defintely NOT bog standard canal maps. They were some of the best available for years that showed substantial parts of the canal system in good detail instead of in sections. I must have been mistaken in thinking that Doug Smith included disused canals, I know there are some maps that show the disused canals to good effect, but will have to think on this.

[magpie patrick]

I wish you had said that a week ago - I was in Monkton Combe and Winsley on Wednesday and would have loved to have seen some of the Somersetshire Coal canal highlights!

 

remember it for next time...

 

Seriously. I'll even throw in a beer