Curmudgeonly Trekker
Cap'n Gregory, at age 13
The Four Counties Ring is one of the most varied narrowboat holiday routes. It takes in the counties of Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and West Midlands. Highlights include the Industrial Canal Heritage of the Stoke-on-Trent potteries region, the wealthy pasturelands of Cheshire, to the stunning remote sandstone cuttings of Shropsire. This route is commonly used by holiday boaters typically taking about a week to complete. It is 109 miles, 94 locks and takes around 56 hours travelling. The ring traverses parts of the five canals listed, in anti-clockwise order from Middlewich Junction: Wardle Canal, Shropshire Union (Middlewich Branch), Shropshire Union Canal, Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal and the Trent and Mersey Canal. When we traversed the Ring, it was in a clockwise direction starting and ending at Great Haywood Junction. It was in June of 1985, a quite wet and windy month in that year and in a boat whose reversing gear seemed not to like me.
Though commercial use of the UK's canals declined after the Second World War, recreational use gradually increased as people had more leisure time and disposable income. The establishment in 1946 of a group called the Inland Waterways Association by L. T. C. Rolt and Robert Aickman has helped revive interest in the UK's canals to the point where they are a major leisure destination.
With Gratitude to Wikipaedia
Since the formation of the Basingstoke Canal Purchasing Committee in March 1949, waterway restoration organisations have returned many hundreds of miles of abandoned and remainder canals to use, and work is still ongoing to save many more. Many restoration projects have been led by local canal societies or trusts, who were initially formed to fight the closure of a remainder waterway or to save an abandoned canal from further decay. They now work with local authorities and landowners to develop restoration plans and secure funding. The physical work is sometimes done by contractors, sometimes by volunteers. In 1970 the Waterway Recovery Group was formed to co-ordinate volunteer efforts on canals and river navigation's throughout the United Kingdom.
British Waterways began to see the economic and social potential of canalside development, and moved from hostility towards restoration, through neutrality, towards a supportive stance. Whilst British Waterways was broadly supportive of restoration, its official policy was that it would not take on support of newly restored navigation's unless they came with a sufficient dowry to pay for their ongoing upkeep. In effect, this meant either reclassifying the Remainder Waterway as a Cruising Waterway or entering into an agreement for another body to maintain the waterway.
There has also been a movement to redevelop canals in inner city areas, such as Birmingham, Manchester, Salford and Sheffield, which have both numerous waterways and urban blight. In these cities, waterways redevelopment provides a focus for successful commercial/residential developments such as Gas Street Basin in Birmingham, Castlefield Basin and Salford Quays in Manchester, Victoria Quays in Sheffield. However, these developments are sometimes controversial. In 2005 environmentalists complained that housing developments on London's waterways threatened the vitality of the canal system.
Today the major majority of canals in England and Wales are managed by the Canal & River Trust which, unlike its predecessor British Waterways, tries to have a more positive view on canal restoration and in some cases actively supports ongoing restoration projects such as the restoration projects on the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal and the Grantham Canal.
Cap'n Gregory, at age 13
The Four Counties Ring is one of the most varied narrowboat holiday routes. It takes in the counties of Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and West Midlands. Highlights include the Industrial Canal Heritage of the Stoke-on-Trent potteries region, the wealthy pasturelands of Cheshire, to the stunning remote sandstone cuttings of Shropsire. This route is commonly used by holiday boaters typically taking about a week to complete. It is 109 miles, 94 locks and takes around 56 hours travelling. The ring traverses parts of the five canals listed, in anti-clockwise order from Middlewich Junction: Wardle Canal, Shropshire Union (Middlewich Branch), Shropshire Union Canal, Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal and the Trent and Mersey Canal. When we traversed the Ring, it was in a clockwise direction starting and ending at Great Haywood Junction. It was in June of 1985, a quite wet and windy month in that year and in a boat whose reversing gear seemed not to like me.
Though commercial use of the UK's canals declined after the Second World War, recreational use gradually increased as people had more leisure time and disposable income. The establishment in 1946 of a group called the Inland Waterways Association by L. T. C. Rolt and Robert Aickman has helped revive interest in the UK's canals to the point where they are a major leisure destination.
With Gratitude to Wikipaedia
Since the formation of the Basingstoke Canal Purchasing Committee in March 1949, waterway restoration organisations have returned many hundreds of miles of abandoned and remainder canals to use, and work is still ongoing to save many more. Many restoration projects have been led by local canal societies or trusts, who were initially formed to fight the closure of a remainder waterway or to save an abandoned canal from further decay. They now work with local authorities and landowners to develop restoration plans and secure funding. The physical work is sometimes done by contractors, sometimes by volunteers. In 1970 the Waterway Recovery Group was formed to co-ordinate volunteer efforts on canals and river navigation's throughout the United Kingdom.
British Waterways began to see the economic and social potential of canalside development, and moved from hostility towards restoration, through neutrality, towards a supportive stance. Whilst British Waterways was broadly supportive of restoration, its official policy was that it would not take on support of newly restored navigation's unless they came with a sufficient dowry to pay for their ongoing upkeep. In effect, this meant either reclassifying the Remainder Waterway as a Cruising Waterway or entering into an agreement for another body to maintain the waterway.
There has also been a movement to redevelop canals in inner city areas, such as Birmingham, Manchester, Salford and Sheffield, which have both numerous waterways and urban blight. In these cities, waterways redevelopment provides a focus for successful commercial/residential developments such as Gas Street Basin in Birmingham, Castlefield Basin and Salford Quays in Manchester, Victoria Quays in Sheffield. However, these developments are sometimes controversial. In 2005 environmentalists complained that housing developments on London's waterways threatened the vitality of the canal system.
Today the major majority of canals in England and Wales are managed by the Canal & River Trust which, unlike its predecessor British Waterways, tries to have a more positive view on canal restoration and in some cases actively supports ongoing restoration projects such as the restoration projects on the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal and the Grantham Canal.