When most people travel in England they travel by road, rail or air however there's another mode of transport that offers an amazing view of the countryside; A relaxing, peaceful and serene mode of transport using a unique "roadway", or should I say boat-way. I refer, of course, to the canal system. These are navigated by purpose-built canal-boats on which people travel, holiday and in fact also live on. The canal systems were also used for the transportation of goods and resources like coal also. The canal system covers vast areas of England and into Wales and Scotland also with the earliest being built in the mid 1700's.

To overcome the problem of varying levels of terrain a system of locks is employed. A lock is essentially two gates in the canal with the water level on one side of the set of gates being higher, or lower, than the level at the other set of gates. If a boat wanted to continue up a canal that was at a higher water-level the boat would approach and enter a lock after opening the first gate. Once inside the gate would be closed behind them and the lock flooded from the canal above to raise the water level to that on the other side of the second gate. Once it is was at the right level the second gate is opened and the boat floats through to the higher level canal. It's simple but has worked for some 270 years or so. Below you can see a canal and some boats as well.

One of the cool things is that they also had to navigate over other rivers (like the Avon in Bath), through mountains and across valleys too. This sounds like a problem but thanks to the Roman invention of aqueducts the builders had it covered. They simple built aqueducts across the valley to join the canal on each side together. An Aqueduct is simply a bridge that carries water. If you look at the image below you will see one. In the background you'll see some boats on the far side waiting to cross over.

This bridge below is actually an aqueduct, the Dundas Aqueduct to be precise. It was completed in the year 1800 and is still in use today as you can see. My wife, Faith, is standing on it and down below is the Avon river and a railway line. The second image was taken from the bridge with a train heading to Bath and the Avon to the left.

If you take a look at the first image in this post you'll note the canals evan have road signs pointing to the next village or mooring point. They truly are "water-roads."

These canals have been a vital lifeline to some rural communities and of course have been pivotal in helping to grow and expand the country as a whole. Unfortunately with the invention of railway the dependence on the canals declined and then halted and many feel into disrepair in favour of the faster method of transport. Fortunately they have been saved through the effort and hard work of many volunteers and a great deal of cash and they are now in great repair and well used by locals and tourists alike.

In England and Wales there is about 1569 locks, around 53 tunnels, 3112 bridges, 370 aqueducts and some 74 reservoirs. Impressive numbers huh? The Grand Canal is 137 miles long, the longest of them all. The longest tunnel is Standedge at 3 miles long and at 1000 feet long the Pontcycyllte aqueduct is the longest! (That's 914 metres long!)

I guess to get a true understanding of the canal system and it's engineering genius you'd have to be here to see for yourself but I hope my photo's give you a bit of an idea. When you see these things in real life and recall that they were built a few hundred years ago it really puts things into perspective. I hope to do a canal boat holiday someday but for now I'll have to marvel at this amazing mode of transport from dry land.

Thanks for reading.

Faith & Galen x