Narrowboat/Canal Boat Hire for Barge Holidays at Barton Turns, Staffordshire, UK        ***Houseboats now also available***
Boat Rental Canal World Forum Find a Holiday Inside the Narrowboats Inside the Houseboats Faq's and Notes Links	Why Canals? Looking back to the early 1700’s there was a desperate need to develop a better transport system to serve the interior of the UK generally. The coastal ports together with towns and cities on the major navigable rivers were served well enough by coastal and continental shipping, but getting produce from say the Midlands to London would have been a nightmare and it may well have been easier to bring in goods from a continental port instead. Most roads were unmade tracks, used by horse or oxen drawn carts with the capacity of not much more than a ton and moving at no more than a walking pace. Further to this many of the roads would have been so bad as to be impassable with a wheeled vehicle for the worst months of the year. Articles from that period also suggest that potters short of clay would add to the problems by digging clay from the roads, reports being noted of travellers falling down 4ft deep pits. “Pot Holes”? Highwaymen, Brigands, broken axels and a lack of signposts were all challenges of the day and if you did not take account of them a safe conclusion to your venture was an unlikely prospect. At the same time the seeds of the industrial revolution were being sown, with cities such as London, Liverpool and Nottingham expanding and needing to be serviced with provisions from the countryside. Mines needed to get their ores to the smelters and demand for coal was rising as a fashionable fuel.  The first ventures in “canal building” as opposed to improving and maintaining existing river “Navigations” came about 1758 when James Brindley was employed by Earl Gower, Lord Anson and Thomas Broade to do a survey for a proposed canal from Wildern Ferry to  Stoke-on Trent. Lord Gower was the brother in law of the Duke of Bridgewater who owned mines in Manchester and was looking for a solution to his logistical problems.  At about the same time Josiah Wedgewood was also looking for a means of safely transporting his produce from the potteries to the docks at Liverpool. A meeting with James Brindley in 1758 discusses a canal to Stoke on Trent based on the previous survey.  Supported by acts of Parliament, the Duke of Bridgewater, John Brindley and Mathew Boulton as main share holders, with Josiah Wedgewood as Treasurer, the company that was to build what is now the Trent & Mersey Canal was created. The first sod was cut on 26th July 1766 and by May 1777 the whole line of the Trent and Mersey was complete which included over 70 locks and 5 tunnels, the longest being Hardcastle (about 2 miles in length). A remarkable achievement considering the primitive technology employed and the number of new challenges that had to be faced.  John Brindley the engineer died on 27th September 1772. Overwork probably contributed to his demise. A letter from Josiah Wedgewood dated 2nd March 1767 noted that he was unable to attend a committee meeting and expressed concern that he was endangering both health and life through overwork. He was succeeded as engineer by Hugh Henhall in 1772.  The creation of canals allowed one horse to pull up to 60 tons, along clear and trouble free routes at about the same walking pace it would have pulled a cart. Busy canal routes were unlikely to be troubled by too many highwaymen or “Potholes” and with the logistics less of a problem, industry was free to expand.