How long is the canal network?

[Dave_P]

What's the longest journey which can be made on British canals? Canal Planner has 430 miles for Ripon to Bristol. Is there anything longer? I don't mean artificially inventing a long and winding route. I mean the shortest / quickest journey between two points.

 

Just wondering...

[The Bagdad Boatman (waits)]

You can get down to the Medway.

[Dave_P]

I wondered about that, but is it further than Bristol?

 

CanalPlan gives 428 miles from Ripon to Tonbridge but that involves going past the Isle of Grain. Allowing that wouldn't be much different to continuing from Bristol to Avonmouth, down the Severn Estuary to Bude and up the Bude Canal.

[Paul C]

I wondered about that, but is it further than Bristol?

 

CanalPlan gives 428 miles from Ripon to Tonbridge but that involves going past the Isle of Grain. Allowing that wouldn't be much different to continuing from Bristol to Avonmouth, down the Severn Estuary to Bude and up the Bude Canal.

 

Exactly - it depends how you define the limits of navigation or connectability. Do you want to consider ONLY canals? Rivers too? Tidal/non-tidal?

[Guest]

Exactly - it depends how you define the limits of navigation or connectability. Do you want to consider ONLY canals? Rivers too? Tidal/non-tidal?

 

Canalised rivers??

[Dave_P]

I suppose that what makes it hard to give a definitive answer. How about including only waterways navigable by narrowboats and unlikely to cause the average skipper to soil himself! So: tidal trent to keadby is ok. round the isle of grain is dubious!

[mayalld]

What's the longest journey which can be made on British canals? Canal Planner has 430 miles for Ripon to Bristol. Is there anything longer? I don't mean artificially inventing a long and winding route. I mean the shortest / quickest journey between two points.

 

Just wondering...

 

Speculatively, if the northern reaches were re-opened, Kendal to Bristol would be longer

[Paul C]

Probably top of lancaster canal to bottom of medwey then? Otherwise it would be whatever the NE-SW extremes are.

 

Note: 425 miles

Edited December 4, 2012 by Paul C

[John V]

I suppose that what makes it hard to give a definitive answer. How about including only waterways navigable by narrowboats and unlikely to cause the average skipper to soil himself! So: tidal trent to keadby is ok. round the isle of grain is dubious!

 

Last time around that area it was like a pancake.....seen bigger waves on the A&C......Just keep clear of the Montgomery!

[Dave_P]

Speculatively, if the northern reaches were re-opened, Kendal to Bristol would be longer

 

Is there any plan to open the Lancaster to Kendal?

[Pluto]

In terms of total length of navigable inland waterways, the maximum length circa 1849, when there were 4372 miles open, with 431 miles having been closed. It is always difficult to decide exactly what is a navigable inland waterway, and the figures are ones I calculated for BW in 2000 after compiling the figures for every ten years since 1700. In 2000, BW's estimated figures were 5014 total miles, 3160 miles of fully navigable inland waterways, 553 managed unnavigable waterways and 1301 miles of abandoned waterways, with BW responsible for 1723 miles of the open and managed waterways, the rest of the open ones being EA, Broads, locally managed or unmanaged.

 

The question of what is an inland waterway is particularly concerned with tidal estuary and river waters, where there can be some degree of management or responsibility for navigation.

[mayalld]

Is there any plan to open the Lancaster to Kendal?

 

Apparently so

[Puckle]

I canoed from Cricklade to Tonbridge. that was a bloody long way.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Puckle