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The River Wey Navigation and Godalming Navigation, geographically (but not historically) the Wey Navigation, form a continuous waterway which provides a 20-mile (32 km) navigable route from the River Thames between Weybridge and Hamm Court, Addlestone via Guildford to Godalming. The waterway is in Surrey and is owned by the National Trust. The Wey Navigation connects to the Basingstoke Canal at West Byfleet, and the Godalming Navigation part to the Wey and Arun Canal in the Broadford part of Shalford. The Navigations consist of man-made canal and adapted (dredged and straightened) parts of the River Wey. Its adjoining path is part of European long-distance path E2.
The Wey was the second river in England to be turned from wholly unnavigable to navigable for its main town, as it was behind the River Lea; the River Wey Navigation opened in 1653 with 12 locks between Weybridge and Guildford. Construction of the Godalming Navigation, a further four locks, was completed in 1764 connecting a second market town. Commercial traffic (save for exceptional loads for canalside buildings) ceased in 1983 and the Wey Navigation and the Godalming Navigations were donated to the National Trust in 1964 and 1968 respectively
Grantham Canal, Stenwith. Looking through Bridge No.60 at an un-navigable part of the canal.
Grantham, Lincolnshire, England - Bulrush on the Grantham Canal at Stenwith.
April 2018
Yale is an unincorporated town in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Located on the Fraser River, it is generally considered to be on the dividing line between the Coast and the Interior regions of the British Columbia Mainland. Immediately north of the town, the Fraser Canyon begins and the river is generally considered unnavigable past this point. Rough water is common on the Fraser anywhere upstream from Chilliwack and even more so above Hope, about 20 mi (32 km) south of Yale. However, steamers could make it to Yale, good pilots and water conditions permitting, and the town had a busy dockside life as well as a variety of bars, restaurants, hotels, saloons and various services. Its maximum population during the gold rush era was in the 15,000 range. More generally, it housed 5,000-8,000. The higher figure was counted at the time of evacuation of the Canyon during the Fraser Canyon War of 1858.
- from 1908 "Lovell's Gazetteer of the Dominion of Canada" - YALE, a post settlement In New Westminster District, B.C., and a station on the main line of the C.P.R., 102 miles east of Vancouver.
(from - Wrigley's 1918 British Columbia directory) - YALE - a post office and station on the O. P. Railway, main line, and C. N. Railway, main line, on the Fraser River, 102 miles east of Vancouver, and 13 north of Hope, in Yale Provincial Electoral District. Is served also by river steamers from New Westminster. Has Anglican church. The population in 1918 was 100. Local resources: Mining and fruit-growing. Has extensive undeveloped water power.
Ovid Allard established a new Hudsons Bay Company post here in 1847; the post was named Fort Yale, after James Murray Yale.
from - / YALE / NO 20 / 05 / BRIT.COL. / - cds cancel - Brit Col in full circle (23.5 mm) - ERD - 31 March 1883 / LRD - 18 February 1911. There is also an earlier Brit Col in a full circle hammer (29.0 mm).
arrived at - / WINNIPEG, CANADA / NOV 25 / 930 AM / 1905 / - machine arrival
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The sender of this postcard was: (Lorena Rourke signed the front of this postcard and was attending the "All Hallow's School" in Yale, British Columbia in 1905 / 06)
Lorena Olive Evangeline Rourke / Lorena Marguerite Rourke, or alternate middle names Olive Evangeline
Birth - 16 September 1891 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Death - 24 November 1967 in Shasta, California, United States
She was married - 19 Aug 1909 in Vancouver, British Columbia to - Henry Jesse Quimby (b. 1887 in Easton, Minnesota)
From other researchers:
- Austin lived in California looking after his wife who was an invalid then [ca 1963] (her name was Lorena). When Lorena died, Austin brought her ashes up to Victoria to bury them with her parents.
- Lorena’s last name was Rourke. I don’t know if that was her maiden name or her first husband’s name. She had two daughters and divorced her husband to marry Austin. I don’t know the whole story, but Austin and Lorena were sweethearts before he went to war, and somehow she received the news that he had been killed. She had already married when she found out the truth, but years later she and Austin were reunited and had many happy years.
- While reading your blog about Arther Creswell you mentioned you didn't have his wife Lerena's maiden name. After doing some digging, I believe I have come up with the answer. Lorena Marguerite Rourke, or alternate middle names Olive Evangeline. She is the daughter of William Rourke and Amelia Graham. One brother, two sisters, one sister dying at age 3. She was previously married to Henry Jesse Quimby and had one daughter. Their marrige record is in the Archives B.C. - LINK - www.boormanfamily.ca/trees/compton/rr01/rr01_120.htm
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Postcard was sent by Lorena Rourke who was a student at the "All Hallows School, Yale, British Columbia. She writes - This is a picture of our school (referring to the front of the postcard). I am at home sick. Sure hope you will write to me soon. Lots of luck to Miss Dalton (Miss Martha Jane Dalton).
Due to health reasons. Miss Martha Jane Dalton was forced to resign her post as headmistress at Havergal at the end of the 1906 school year."
Miss Martha Jane Dalton was born in 1868 and received her higher education at Westfield College, London University where she was an English and Science specialist. After leaving Havergal, she took a pleasure trip to Japan where she was asked to remain and organize a Girls' College. She returned to England at the outbreak of World War I and volunteered as a nurse. After the War she travelled to Syria to administer supplies and provide supervision for the British efforts among the Armenian refugees. She died in Vancouver, British Columbia on August 9, 1955.
Postcard was addressed to: Miss G. Henderson / Havergal College / 122 Carlton Street / Winnipeg, Manitoba
Havergal College / Rupert’s Land Girls School (122 Carlton Street, Winnipeg) - Founded by Samuel Pritchard Matheson in 1901 as a place specifically for the higher education of girls, Havergal College (also known as Havergal Ladies’ College) was located in the 1882 Carlton Street residence of Albert William Austin. Initially opened as a residential and day school, enrollment quickly necessitated expansion. A large addition to the original structure was started in 1902 and completed the following year by the Manitoba Construction Company. In 1904, the adjacent property on Edmonton Avenue was purchased from the Hudson’s Bay Company for use of Physical Culture [Physical Education] classes such as field, court, and rink sports. A further accommodation increase occurred in 1905-1906.
In 1915, the school renamed to the Rupert’s Land Girls’ School as to avoid confusion with the Havergal School at Toronto, Ontario, and it was incorporated with St. John’s College. Grades were expanded to include K-12, with core English and mathematics courses augmented with religious education, home economics, arts, languages (French, German, and Latin) music, handicrafts, physical training, dancing, botany, drawing, and others.
In 1950, the school was amalgamated with the Riverbend School for Girls to form the Balmoral Hall School for Girls. After 1954, the site was vacated and the facility was used as an armoury and mess hall by the Royal Canadian Air Force No. 17 Wing Auxiliary. In the spring of 1964, the building was demolished to make way for a provincial government parking lot. At a special ceremony attended by Balmoral Hall board member Ian Jessiman, Balmoral Hall teacher Beverly Sharman, Principal Gwendolyn Murrell-Wright, RCAF 17 Auxiliary Wing Commander John Klaponski, and Superintendent of Manitoba Government Buildings Robert Gemmel, the building’s 1902 expansion cornerstone time capsule was opened. Inside was a copy of a 1902 Manitoba Free Press, Havergal College pupils list, and assorted artifacts. The 1902 cornerstone was saved by the school.
The site remained a surface parking lot until the 2013-2014 expansion of the Winnipeg Convention Centre. Link to the complete article - www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/havergalcollege.shtml
Lancaster Depot Footbridge which goes over the Lancaster Canal in Lancaster, Lancashire.
The canal's principal purpose was to transport coal north from the Lancashire Coalfields, and limestone south from Cumbria. The nature of these cargoes gave the waterway its local nickname - the Black and White Canal. The Glasson branch allowed cargo transfer from sea going vessels that could not navigate the increasingly shallow Lune Estuary into Lancaster.
The canal was built in two sections, north and south of the River Ribble. John Rennie designed major two aqueducts, one over the Lune at Lancaster, and one over the Ribble at Preston. Due to problems with the foundations of the Lune Aqueduct, the company ran out of sufficient money to build the Ribble aqueduct to connect the two sections. Instead, a tramway was built from Walton Summit to Preston. This worked adequately, and so the two sections were never connected. Subsequently, in 1816 a branch was opened from the southern section to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal at Johnsons Hillock. The section south of Preston became part of the much-delayed Leeds & Liverpool, who leased it in 1863: and the tramway from Walton Summit to Preston eventually closed in the 1880s.
North of Preston, though, the waterway was fairly successful. Because of the lack of locks, the daily Packet Boat passenger service really was 'express' - Kendal could be reached from Preston in an unheard of 10 hours. In fact the service was so comfortable that passengers on the daily runs between Preston and Kendal remained loyal to the waterway for several years after the arrival of the trains.
Roads posed a more serious threat and after a general decline (the last cargo sailing in 1947) the construction of the M6 motorway through the line of the canal finally saw the 14 miles of the Northern Reaches isolated at Tewitfield Locks. The isolated, largely unnavigable section to the north is home to the only tunnel on the Lancaster Canal at Hincaster.
However, the modern age has benefited the Lancaster Canal in one way: the new Millennium Ribble Link. Opened in 2002 as the first new canal for 97 years, this connects the Lancaster to the national network via the River Ribble, the River Douglas and the Leeds & Liverpool Canal's Rufford Branch.
Information gained from canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-rive...
The Grade I Listed High Bridge carrying the High Street over the River Witham in Lincoln. It is the oldest bridge in the United Kingdom which still has buildings on it. It was built about 1160, in 1235 the Chapel of St Thomas (dedicated to Thomas Becket) was built on the eastside of it, this was removed in 1762 and the still existing row of shops were built sometime before 1550.
Bridges like this were common in the Middle Ages, the best-known being London Bridge, but most have long since been demolished because of their obstruction to the river flow and to shipping.
The Glory Hole is the name given by generations of boaters to the High Bridge in Lincoln. It has a narrow and crooked arch which sets a limit on the size of boats travelling from Brayford Pool / Fossdyke Canal on towards Boston and the sea.
Since the 14th Century the bridge has contributed to floods in Lincoln and after any heavy rain the bridge is virtually unnavigable, which may be why it got its name. A design by William Jessop in the 19th century to reroute the waters of the Witham through the south of the town was never implemented.
Information Source:
The Lancaster Canal in Lancaster, Lancashire.
The canal's principal purpose was to transport coal north from the Lancashire Coalfields, and limestone south from Cumbria. The nature of these cargoes gave the waterway its local nickname - the Black and White Canal. The Glasson branch allowed cargo transfer from sea going vessels that could not navigate the increasingly shallow Lune Estuary into Lancaster.
The canal was built in two sections, north and south of the River Ribble. John Rennie designed major two aqueducts, one over the Lune at Lancaster, and one over the Ribble at Preston. Due to problems with the foundations of the Lune Aqueduct, the company ran out of sufficient money to build the Ribble aqueduct to connect the two sections. Instead, a tramway was built from Walton Summit to Preston. This worked adequately, and so the two sections were never connected. Subsequently, in 1816 a branch was opened from the southern section to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal at Johnsons Hillock. The section south of Preston became part of the much-delayed Leeds & Liverpool, who leased it in 1863: and the tramway from Walton Summit to Preston eventually closed in the 1880s.
North of Preston, though, the waterway was fairly successful. Because of the lack of locks, the daily Packet Boat passenger service really was 'express' - Kendal could be reached from Preston in an unheard of 10 hours. In fact the service was so comfortable that passengers on the daily runs between Preston and Kendal remained loyal to the waterway for several years after the arrival of the trains.
Roads posed a more serious threat and after a general decline (the last cargo sailing in 1947) the construction of the M6 motorway through the line of the canal finally saw the 14 miles of the Northern Reaches isolated at Tewitfield Locks. The isolated, largely unnavigable section to the north is home to the only tunnel on the Lancaster Canal at Hincaster.
However, the modern age has benefited the Lancaster Canal in one way: the new Millennium Ribble Link. Opened in 2002 as the first new canal for 97 years, this connects the Lancaster to the national network via the River Ribble, the River Douglas and the Leeds & Liverpool Canal's Rufford Branch.
Information gained from canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-rive...
Our friend and guide Alex, helped us navigate the unnavigable roads of the San Luis region to find the fabled Vegas Robaina Tobacco plantation.
Laura was reading about it here
One of the workers on the plantation took us through the process and gave us a brief history of Robaina, well into his 90's and who has had this tobacco plantation passed down several generations. He had even outlived 1 or 2 of his own children.
Our expectations were fairly low in having the opportunity to meet The Man but on our way out we were told to wait in the one section of his house (on the plantation) and after a short wait we were greeted by the legend (flanked and aided by 2 of his staff) that is Alejandro Robaina. The old man exuded an incredible energy, wisdom and charisma that truly lived up to the tales we had heard thus far. He would have obviously experienced pre and post revolution Cuba in the prime of his life.
He also had a thing for charming the ladies. The old dog.
NEMO Science Museum at the Osterdok, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland (North Holland), Netherlands
Some background information:
The NEMO is a science museum in Amsterdam. It is located at the Oosterdok in Amsterdam-Centrum, situated between the Oosterdokseiland and Kattenburg. The museum has its origins in 1923 and is housed in a building designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano since 1997. Piano also designed the Shard in London, the New York Times Building in New York City and the Kansai International Airport in Osaka. In 1998, he won the Pritzker Prize. The NEMO contains five floors of hands-on science exhibitions and is the largest science center in the Netherlands. It attracts annually over 500,000 visitors, which makes it the fifth most visited museum in the Netherlands.
Amsterdam is the capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the Dutch capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands though it is not the seat of the Dutch government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population more than 800,000 within the city-proper, more than 1.1 million in the urban region almost 1.6 million in the greater metropolitan area. The city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country. It comprises much of the northern part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe, with a population of approximately 7 million.
The city is sometimes also called "The Venice of the North” because it is home to more than one hundred kilometers of canals. These canals divide Amsterdam into approximately 90 islands which are linked by more than 1,200 bridges. The canals of Amsterdam (mainly from the 17th century) are a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2010 and the Defence Line of Amsterdam is a UNESCO World Heritage site already since 1996.
Amsterdam's name derives from "Aemstelredamme", indicative of the city's origin as a dam of the river Amstel. Developing from a small fishing village in the late 12th century, Amsterdam became one of the most important ports in the world during the Dutch Golden Age (17th century), a result of its innovative developments in trade.
By 1327 the name of the settlement had developed into "Aemsterdam". Already some years earlier, either in 1300 or 1306, Amsterdam was granted city rights. From the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely because of its trade with the Hanseatic League.
After being reigned by the King of Spain in the first half of the 16th century, the seventeen provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands rebelled against Philip II of Spain and his successors in 1568. The main reasons for the uprising were the imposition of new taxes, the tenth penny, and the religious persecution of Protestants by the Spanish Inquisition. The revolt escalated into the Eighty Years' War, which ultimately led to Dutch independence. Strongly pushed by Dutch Revolt leader William the Silent, the Dutch Republic became known for its relative religious tolerance. Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, Huguenots from France, prosperous merchants and printers from Flanders, and economic and religious refugees from the Spanish-controlled parts of the Low Countries found safety in Amsterdam.
The 17th century is considered Amsterdam's Golden Age, during which it became the wealthiest city in the world. Ships sailed from Amsterdam to the Baltic Sea, North America, and Africa, as well as present-day Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and Brazil, forming the basis of a worldwide trading network. Amsterdam's merchants had the largest share in both the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company. These companies acquired overseas possessions that later became Dutch colonies. At that time Amsterdam was Europe's most important point for the shipment of goods and also the leading financial centre of the world.
During the 18th and early 19th century Amsterdam's prosperity declined. The wars of the Dutch Republic with England and France took their toll on Amsterdam. During the Napoleonic Wars, Amsterdam's significance reached its lowest point, with Holland being absorbed into the French Empire. However, the later establishment of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815 marked a turning point.
The end of the 19th century is sometimes called Amsterdam's second Golden Age. New museums, a train station, and the concert hall were built and at this same time, the Industrial Revolution reached the city. The Amsterdam-Rhine Canal was dug to give Amsterdam a direct connection to the Rhine, and the North Sea Canal was dug to give the port a shorter connection to the North Sea. Both projects dramatically improved commerce with the rest of Europe and the world.
Shortly before the First World War, the city expanded and new suburbs were built. Even though the Netherlands remained neutral in this war, Amsterdam suffered a food shortage, and heating fuel became scarce. The shortages sparked riots in which several people were killed. These riots are known as the Aardappeloproer (potato rebellion).
On 10th May 1940 Germany invaded the Netherlands and took control of the country. Some Amsterdam citizens sheltered Jews, thereby exposing themselves and their families to the high risk of being imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. More than 100,000 Dutch Jews were deported to Nazi concentration camps of which some 60.000 lived in Amsterdam. The most famous deportee was the young Jewish girl Anne Frank, who died in Bergen-Belsen.
In the years after the Second World War many new suburbs, such as Osdorp, Slotervaart, Slotermeer, and Geuzenveld, were built. After plans were made to redesign the whole city centre, which had fallen into disrepair, and to a minor degree were also implemented, many residents expressed their fury about the demolition caused by the restructuring of the city. As a result, the demolition was stopped and Amsterdam kept its beautiful mainly Renaissance appearance.
But Amsterdam is not only popular with tourists and residents alike due to its lovely cityscape, but also because of its laxity in regard to sex and drugs. Amsterdam’s red-light districts attract multitudes of visitors and the numerous coffee shops all over the city, where you can buy weed and hashish, are also always well-frequented.
Public boat launch in Carleton Place. There are twin docks, and there is a minimal usage fee. From here, boats go left or southish into Mississippi Lake. The town is the other way and the river becomes unnavigable due to rapids. That's why the town is here in the first place -- at a site where waterpower could be harnessed.
© Anvilcloud Photography
Pictures taken on a trip to Stoke Bruene - Including a boat trip into Blisworth Tunnel.
At 3,076 yards long it is the third-longest navigable canal tunnel on the UK canal network after Standedge Tunnel and Dudley Tunnel. The tunnel has no tow path inside, but is wide enough for two narrowboats to pass in opposite directions
It was contrusted between 1793 & 1805 but due to changes in the shape of the tunnel over time, the tunnel became unnavigable. There was some major rebuilding of the tunnel in the 1980s, with sections lined with pre-cast concrete rings. It was also used to test out the materials that were later used on the Channel Tunnel. One of the unused rings is on display just outside the south portal.
I visited this recreational area in 1998 with my wife and again in 2014. My wife didn't walk the catwalk and in 2014, there had been some major flooding in the mountains and this area was really affected as it was closed. If you ever are close to this area, take the side trip to go see.
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The Catwalk's history began with the discovery of gold and silver in the rugged Mogollon Mountains above Whitewater Canyon. In 1893, the small town of Graham (also known as Whitewater) grew around a mill, located on the west hillside near the present day location of the parking area. The mill only lasted about 10 years. In the mid-1930's the Civilian Conservation Corps rebuilt the Catwalk. The Catwalk bridge system washed away during a huge flooding event after the 2012 Whitewater-Baldy Fire. The bridge system was rebuilt and is now open for approximately .5 miles from the parking lot. This is a very accessible area and easily hiked by all ages. After the bridge system, the trail system has been cleared for another .5 - .75 miles. It goes across a low-water crossing, across the fiberglass bridge and through the arch. Once you go up the stairs to a small viewing area the trail can become steep. Past the "swimming hole" the trail becomes unnavigable. A series of trail reconstruction projects are scheduled to occur in summer and fall 2023 to restore trail access toward Hummingbird Saddle.
Pictures taken on a trip to Stoke Bruene - Including a boat trip into Blisworth Tunnel.
At 3,076 yards long it is the third-longest navigable canal tunnel on the UK canal network after Standedge Tunnel and Dudley Tunnel. The tunnel has no tow path inside, but is wide enough for two narrowboats to pass in opposite directions
It was contrusted between 1793 & 1805 but due to changes in the shape of the tunnel over time, the tunnel became unnavigable. There was some major rebuilding of the tunnel in the 1980s, with sections lined with pre-cast concrete rings. It was also used to test out the materials that were later used on the Channel Tunnel. One of the unused rings is on display just outside the south portal.
Our last couple of miles on this walk was along the towpath of the unnavigable section of the canal back to Llangollen. I'm not altogether clear on why a towpath was needed for this section but nevertheless it is in very good condition
A convoy of boats on their way to Bridge 46 (Bevan’s Lane) in a protest to the council about the state of the canal below Bridge 46, to Five Locks, Pontnewydd. Despite dredging earlier this year, this stretch has become choked with weed, and unnavigable. From Bridge 47 to Five Locks, maintenance of the canal falls to Torfaen County Borough Council. Unfortunately, the lead boat, the “Widget” fouled her prop on some wire discarded in the canal, blocking the procession while attempts were made to clear it.
It reminded me of the urban myth of how Sebastopol got its name; the story went that bargees would get “tanked up” at the Crown pub here, then fight each other for precedence through the bridge. On one occasion, a veteran of the Crimean War exclaimed he had not seen such fighting since he was at Sebastopol. The truth is of course, that it was merely named in honour of the famous battle.
The entrance to the now-disused and unnavigable Rochdale Branch of the main Rochdale Canal, with the now derelict Victorian mill buildings standing forlorn on the canalside.
"High Bridge carries the High Street across the River Witham in Lincoln in eastern England. It is the oldest bridge in the United Kingdom which still has buildings on it. The bridge was built about 1160 AD and a bridge chapel was built dedicated to Thomas Becket in 1235 on the east side of the bridge. The chapel was removed in 1762. The current row of timber framed shops on the west side of the bridge date from about 1550. The two upper storeys of the shops are jettied forward and at the corners there are carved figures of angels. The shops were partly dismantled and re-erected in 1901–02 under the supervision of the Lincoln architect William Watkins.
Bridges like this were common in the Middle Ages, the best known being London Bridge, but most have long since been demolished because of their obstruction to the river flow and to shipping.
The 'Glory Hole'
The Glory Hole is the name given by generations of boaters to the High Bridge in Lincoln. It has a narrow and crooked arch which sets a limit on the size of boats using the Witham and going from Brayford Pool, at the start of Foss Dyke, to Boston and the sea.
Since the 14th century the bridge has contributed to floods in Lincoln and after any heavy rain the bridge is virtually unnavigable, which may be why it got its name. A design by William Jessop in the 19th century to reroute the waters of the Witham through the south of the town was never implemented.
The bridge is both a grade I listed building and a scheduled monument.
Lincoln is a cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire in the East Midlands of England. The non-metropolitan district of Lincoln had a 2012 population of 94,600. The 2011 census gave the urban area of Lincoln, which includes North Hykeham and Waddington, a population of 130,200. Roman Lindum Colonia developed from an Iron Age settlement on the River Witham. The city's landmarks include Lincoln Cathedral, an example of English Gothic architecture and the tallest building in the world for over 200 years, and the 11th-century Norman Lincoln Castle. The city is home to the University of Lincoln and Bishop Grosseteste University, and to Lincoln City FC and Lincoln United FC." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.
The Meuse River (MAAS in Dutch) rises in Pouilly-en-Bassigny, commune of Le Châtelet-sur-Meuse on the Langres plateau in France from where it flows northwards past Sedan (the head of navigation) and Charleville-Mézières into Belgium.
At Namur it is joined by the River Sambre. Beyond Namur the Meuse winds eastwards, skirting the Ardennes, and passes Liège before turning north. The river then forms part of the Belgian-Dutch border, except that at Maastricht the border lies further to the west. In the Netherlands it continues northwards through Venlo closely along the border to Germany, then turns towards the west, where it runs parallel to the Waal and forms part of the extensive Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, together with the Scheldt river in its south and the Rhine in the north. The river has been divided near Heusden into the Afgedamde Maas on the right and the Bergse Maas on the left. The Bergse Maas continues under the name of Amer, which is part of De Biesbosch. The Afgedamde Maas joins the Waal, the main stem of the Rhine at Woudrichem, and then flows under the name of Boven Merwede to Hardinxveld-Giessendam, where it splits into Nieuwe Merwede and Beneden Merwede. Near Lage Zwaluwe, the Nieuwe Merwede joins the Amer, forming the Hollands Diep, which splits into Grevelingen and Haringvliet, before finally flowing into the North Sea.
The Meuse is crossed by railway bridges between the following stations (on the left and right banks respectively):
Netherlands: Hasselt (Belgium) – Maastricht (currently being put back online)
Weert - Roermond
Blerick – Venlo
Cuijk – Mook-Molenhoek
Ravenstein – Wijchen
's-Hertogenbosch – Zaltbommel
There are also numerous road bridges and around 32 ferry crossings.
The Meuse is navigable over a substantial part of its total length: In the Netherlands and Belgium, the river is part of the major inland navigation infrastructure, connecting the Rotterdam-Amsterdam-Antwerp port areas to the industrial areas upstream: Hertogenbosch, Venlo, Maastricht, Liège, Namur. Between Maastricht and Maasbracht, an unnavigable section of the Meuse is bypassed by the 36 km Juliana Canal. South of Namur, further upstream, the river can only carry more modest vessels, although a barge as long as 100 m. can still reach the French border town of Givet.
From Givet, the river is canalized over a distance of 272 kilometres. The canalized Meuse used to be called the "Canal de l'Est — Branche Nord" but was recently rebaptized into "Canal de la Meuse". The waterway can be used by the smallest barges that are still in use commercially (almost 40 metres long and just over 5 metres wide). Just upstream of the town of Commercy, the Canal de la Meuse connects with the Marne–Rhine Canal by means of a short diversion canal.
The Cretaceous sea reptile Mosasaur is named after the river Meuse. The first fossils of it were discovered outside Maastricht 1780.
Pictures taken on a trip to Stoke Bruene - Including a boat trip into Blisworth Tunnel.
At 3,076 yards long it is the third-longest navigable canal tunnel on the UK canal network after Standedge Tunnel and Dudley Tunnel. The tunnel has no tow path inside, but is wide enough for two narrowboats to pass in opposite directions
It was contrusted between 1793 & 1805 but due to changes in the shape of the tunnel over time, the tunnel became unnavigable. There was some major rebuilding of the tunnel in the 1980s, with sections lined with pre-cast concrete rings. It was also used to test out the materials that were later used on the Channel Tunnel. One of the unused rings is on display just outside the south portal.
Ducks huddle around a waterfall and the last vestiges of unnavigable open water in Toronto's Inner Harbour.
This is the Norwood bridge with a date stone of 1833. The canal was originally opened in 1777.
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media .com without my explicit permission. All rights reserved.
© rogerperriss@aol.com
Industrial ruins alongside the River Avon alongside Hotwell Road, in Hotwells, Bristol, Avon.
The name "Avon" is a cognate of the Welsh word afon, "river". The Avon rises just north of the village of Acton Turville in South Gloucestershire, before flowing through Wiltshire. In its lower reaches from Bath to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth near Bristol the river is navigable and known as the Avon Navigation. The Avon is the 19th longest river in the UK at 75 miles (121 km) although there are just 19 miles (31 km) as the crow flies between the source and its mouth in the Severn Estuary.
The distribution of archaeological finds suggests that the western end of the river between Bath and Avonmouth formed a border between the Dobunni and Durotriges during the late Iron Age, prior to the Roman conquest of Britain. Further east, between Bath and what is now Wiltshire, it may also have formed a border of the territory ruled by the Belgae. After the Roman occupation the river formed a boundary between the lands of the Hwicce (which became Mercia) and the kingdom of Wessex.
The river Avon had been navigable from Bristol to Bath during the early years of the 13th century but construction of mills on the river forced its closure. The floodplain of the Avon, on which the city centre of Bath is built, has an altitude of about 59 ft (18 m) above sea level. The river, once an unnavigable series of braided streams broken up by swamps and ponds, has been managed by weirs into a single channel. Periodic flooding, which shortened the life of many buildings in the lowest part of the city, was normal until major flood control works were completed in the 1970s.
The Bristol Avon Navigation, which runs the 15 miles (24 km) from the Kennet and Avon Canal at Hanham Lock to the Bristol Channel at Avonmouth, was constructed between 1724 and 1727, following legislation passed by Queen Anne, by a company of proprietors and the engineer John Hore of Newbury. The first cargo of 'Deal boards, Pig-Lead and Meal' arrived in Bath in December 1727. It is now administered by the Canal & River Trust.
Throughout Bristol's history the Avon Gorge has been an important transport route, carrying the River Avon, major roads and two railways. The Bristol Channel and Avon estuary have a very high tidal range of 15 metres (49 ft), second only to Bay of Fundy in Eastern Canada; and the gorge is relatively narrow and meandering, making it notoriously difficult to navigate. Several vessels have grounded in the gorge including the SS Demerara soon after her launch in 1851, the schooner Gipsy in 1878, the steam tug Black Eagle in 1861 and the Llandaff City.
The north-west passage was the unnavigable sea route round North America which was thought to provide a passage to the East. In time, it became synonymous with failure, adversity and death, with men and ships battling against hopeless odds in a frozen wilderness. Millais (1829 – 1896) painted this picture in 1874 when another English expedition was setting off. Previous representations had explored the desolate beauty of the terrain with details such as wrecked ships to underline the futility of man’s ambition. Millais encapsulates the risks of such a voyage primarily through the old seaman, with his grim, distant look and clenched fist.
[Oil on canvas, 1765 x 2222 mm]
gandalfsgallery.blogspot.com/2011/11/john-everett-millais...
Captain Charles Sturt and the origins of the province of South Australia. 39 monuments mainly in SA for Sturt.
We begin at the Murray River estuary. SA begins with Sturt’s epic rowing voyage with his officer and party of convicts. Second in Charge was George McLeay. The boat was carted overland by bullock drays and assembled on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River near the confluence of the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee Rivers north of where Balranald now stands. Sturt was an outstanding commander and avoided any conflict with the often fierce Aboriginal people along the River Murray. The Murrumbidgee River has its confluence with the Murray River at Boundary Bend halfway between Robinvale and Swan Hill. The next major confluence of the Murray River is as Wentworth where the Darling merges with the Murray River. It was Sturt’s reports on the countryside of South Australia that led to the Parliamentary action in London which allowed SA to be establish. In 1833 The South Australian Association was formed in London by Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Robert Gouger and others. This was followed by Westminster’s South Australian Act of 1834 to establish the Province of SA. The South Australian Company was founded in 1835 to promote land sales and fund the new settlement. Governor Hindmarsh declared the foundation of the Province in December 1836 but the Colonisation Commission set up under the 1834 Act failed to fund the settlement. The 1834 Act was repealed in 1842 when the British Colonial Office took control of SA as a Crown colony of Britain ending its days as a province. The sequence of these events demonstrate how South Australia’s foundation ensued from Charles Sturt’s reports on the River Murray lands. His arrival at the Murray River estuary solved the riddle of the western flowing rivers of NSW. Sturt originally set out to discover if there was a giant inland sea where all the westward rivers of the Great Dividing Range ended.
They began the journey on the south bank of Murrumbidgee on 29th Nov south of Yass. The exploration party with their drays and bullocks continued hauling the whaleboat along the banks of the Murrumbidgee in the drays and carts until Christmas Day when they reached the Lachlan River, a tributary of the Murrumbidgee north of Balranald. This confluence is about 35 kms north of Balranald. They camped at Yanga near a big swamp from 26 December to 6 January. Only after Sturt had explored and discovered that the Murrumbidgee did not end up in a huge marsh area with no outflowing river like the Macquarie River but continued as a major river, did he prepare to assemble the whaleboat. In addition to assembling the whaleboat they made a small skiff to be pulled behind it. The whaleboat was thought to be ideal as it had pointed ends for speed and it had a mast for sailing and usually it could be rowed along a river. They set off from here to solve the riddle of the rivers. Before they left Yanga on the 6th January Sturt selected some of the party to stay at that spot for a week in case they could not continue if the river became unnavigable. Then that group was to return the drays and horses to Goulburn. They said their goodbyes to each other on 7th January and from 7th to 14th January Sturt and his party rowed but mainly sailed their way down the Murrumbidgee River from the Balranald area to its junction with a bigger river. On the 13th January they reached this new river which Sturt named the Murray River. This junction is near the tiny settlement of Boundary Bend on the Murray Valley Highway.
On 22nd January they reached the Mildura area and on 23rd January they reached another river which Sturt correctly identified as the Darling River. On the 24th January Sturt named a new small tributary of the Murray River the Rufus River after MacLeay’s red hair. This river flows to Lake Victoria. On the 28th January they passed the border at Murtho. On the 9th February they camped on Hindmarsh Island and on the 11th February they reached the area of Goolwa barrages. Finally on the 12th February Sturt, McLeay and Fraser walked across the sand bar to the beach beside the Murray River mouth. They now knew that the western flowing rivers of NSW ended here at the Southern Ocean not at some big inland sea. The return journey took from 12th February to 25th May. Sturt named Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert and Point McLeay and Point Sturt on Lake Alexandrina. On the 16th March they reached the Murrumbidgee River again. On the 11th April they reached their old camp near Yanga. Sturt continued rowing along the Murrumbidgee River until they abandoned the whaleboat at Narrandera and then they moved over land. They went north when the Murrumbidgee River turn southwards not far from where Gundagai now stands and they passed through Yass on 12th May and reached Sydney 25th May. On the return journey they had downhill water flows to contend with; their provisions and food were scant; they were tired; and Sturt and McLeay also used the oars to get the vessel back upstream. On the return they passed Morgan on 21st February; on 4th March they reached Wentworth and the Darling River; on 23rd March they reached the depot near Balranald. On this gruelling and dangerous expedition eight men had spent 95 days in a 25 foot long whaleboat. Sturt and McLeay’s leadership had been praiseworthy. On the last 150 miles on land the men were near starvation. They were described as such. “Their arms appeared to be nerveless; their faces became haggard, their persons emaciated, their spirits wholly sunk; nature was so completely overcome, that from mere exhaustion they frequently fell asleep during their painful and almost ceaseless exertions."
Their small party of explorers consisted of 9 men including an Aboriginal boy whom they hoped would assist with meeting Aboriginal people along the way. Aboriginal people were seen in many locations along the river. When Sturt tried to check out the Darling River he encountered an Aboriginal fishing trap across it so he return to the Murray. In order to be friendly and make peace with the Aboriginal people, who were often at first aggressive and alarmed, Sturt had a supply of metal tomahawks which were always welcomed and appreciated by the Aboriginal hunters. Some of the Aboriginals accompanied the expedition until it reached the next clan or tribe to ensure their safe passage. The most troublesome spot for Sturt was the confluence of the Darling and Murray rivers. A large group of hunters with spears lined up to attack with women and children giving the group a total of 600 people. Sturt had prepared his men to avoid conflict at all costs. As life was in danger Sturt drew his gun ready to fire. Bright red haired McLeay stopped him from firing and jumped into the river and swam across it to approach the Aboriginal men and he argued for peace. The Aboriginal people encircled McLeay as they were fascinated by his bright red hair. No conflict ensued. Sturt also encountered aggression at the Murray River mouth. The Ngarrindjeri were chanting and when Sturt raised his gun the singing stopped. The Ngarrindjeri were familiar with guns from the American and other whalers who had camped near the Murray mouth since around 1802. No further trouble arose. Sturt also recorded that the Aboriginal people of the lower Murray River were more infected with European disease those higher up the river as early diseases were passed on from the early whalers and sealers. They recognised people suffering from smallpox, syphilis and gonorrhoea.
Goolwa. Sturt passed here on 10th February 1830. Population 9,000.
The Currency Creek Special Survey was taken out in 1839 by the Currency Creek Association based in England. Locally it was their agent Robert Wright who paid for it on behalf of about 30 men. The Currency Creek Association laid out a major town which they hoped would become the New Orleans of the South. It was after all on a good river, near a great lake and near the mouth of the mighty Murray River. Its location was similar to that of New Orleans which was at the mouth of the Mississippi in the USA. They named it after the local river- Currency Creek. They also laid out a much smaller port for the town which they called Goolwa. Currency Creek town covered 8 acres, Goolwa 2 acres. History would show they made the wrong decision as Goolwa prospered and Currency Creek withered! One of the early explorers of this region Young Hutchinson (who explored with Thomas Strangways) liked the area so much that he became a major landowner in Goolwa in 1856. Another explorer William Younghusband gave his name to the peninsula near the Murray Mouth. Although the town of Goolwa was laid out in 1840 sales were minimal until the Governor committed the state to developing Goolwa as a river port and Port Elliot as a coastal port for future riverboat trade up the Murray with a horse railway to connect the two. Work began on this £20,000 project in 1851. (An alternate plan to build a canal between the two at an estimated cost of £28,000 was not pursued by the government.) Apart from the Currency Creek Special Survey of 1839 the government also surveyed land along the proposed rail route to Port Elliot in 1849 making land available to buyers. The first land purchases in this region were made in 1849 at Middleton.
The Murray Mouth.
Collet Barker left Raffles Bay in August 1829 to take command of the penal settlement at King George Sound, which he administered with skill, and where he repeated his former success in conciliating hostile Aboriginals. The settlers at Swan River objected however, to the presence of convicts in their colony and Governor (Sir) James Stirling was not happy to have within his territory a military post under the command of the governor of New South Wales. In March 1831 the station was closed and Barker sailed with the convicts in the Isabella. On the voyage to Sydney he was asked to determine the outlet of the River Murray. He examined the eastern shore of Gulf St Vincent from Cape Jervis northward, climbed Mount Lofty, found Adelaide's future port and named the near-by Sturt River. From Yankalilla Bay he went overland with a party to Encounter Bay where alone he swam the Murray mouth and was speared to death by Aboriginals on 30 April 1831. His journal of this exploration was not completed and accounts of it by his lieutenant were later to cause much confusion when South Australia was settled. His murder by the Ngarrindjeri was senseless and indicates the ferocity of the Ngarrindjeri.
Who was William Younghusband?
William Younghusband (1819 to 1863) was born in Cumberland England in 1819. He arrived in South Australia in 1840 and the ship Gunga but without his wife and family. He arrived in SA again on the barque Fortfield on 22 June 1842 and he returned in January 1843 as the Captain of his father’s trading ship the Fortfield. His wife Louisa arrived in SA on the 26 October 1844 from Liverpool on the barque named Bleng. She was accompanied by their maid and daughters Sarah born in 1838 and Eliza born circa 1840. (Twin sons were born in North Adelaide in 1852.) Before their arrival in Adelaide William Younghusband was managing the barque Fortfield for voyages with goods and passengers between Adelaide and Sydney from February 1843. In April 1843 he took out his first occupation licence over some pastoral land and in late 1844 he had a store or office built in King William Street. He then established his own wool broking and shipping service with a partner in 1845 with offices in Adelaide. In 1845 he also took out a leasehold run on the western side of the Flinders Ranges. The next run he obtained was between the Para/Gawler and Light Rivers on the Adelaide Plains in 1846. He was an early investor in copper mines in Sth Australia. Then in 1853 he helped establish the River Murray paddle steamer trade from Goolwa up to Echuca in Victoria and along the Darling River with Captain Francis Cadell of Goolwa. Next Younghusband became a partner in the Murray River Steam Navigation Company with Cadell. He later had his own steamship company Younghusband Ltd. It had offices in Lockhart in the Riverina near Wagga Wagga and elsewhere. In 1854 William Younghusband built a small stone cottage with an attic room for their maid on the front of Lake Alexandrina at Goolwa. This house remained in the hands of his descendants until the 1950s and was enlarged several times but it was not the main family residence. That was in North Adelaide. Younghusband became a member of the Legislative Council of South Australia from 1851 until full self-government was instituted in 1856. To obviate the need for extensive travel to the Legislative Council he had a house in Stanley Street North Adelaide in 1851. After full self-government was granted to South Australia in 1856 William Younghusband was elected to the Legislative Council and was Chief Secretary of Premier Hansen’s government from 1856 to 1860. He retired from parliament in 1861. He established several government departments during this time. As a successful businessman he was also a director of the Bank of Australasia. The nearby Younghusband Peninsula on the edge of the Coorong was named after him. He died of typhus fever whilst holidaying in Rome in 1863. He had married Louisa Thomas in Calcutta in September 1836 not long before he first ventured to the new province of South Australia. His wife died at their North Adelaide home in 1869.
The Barrages. Sturt passed here on 11th February 1830.
The waters of the Darling and the Murray are the life blood of SA. But current political discussions about saving the water flows of the rivers and irrigation rights are not new. History repeats itself. The first political furore over the Murray happened in 1886 when NSW and Victoria agreed to control the river, totally ignoring SA. Fortunately this agreement faltered when Sir Henry Parkes as NSW Premier in 1890 wanted no further negotiations. Then 123 years ago in 1902, after a prolonged drought between 1895-1902, the new Federal government joined with the Murray states (SA, Vic and NSW) for a major conference on water usage at Corowa near Albury. State premiers and the new Prime Minister met to discuss water regulation to maintain flows in times of drought. The outcome was not direct action but a Royal Commission. It later advised that navigation of the river in times of drought would be secured by the construction of weirs across the Murray but until then SA had to be guaranteed a certain amount of water so restrictions should apply to NSW and Victoria. A Murray River Commission should be established to enforce these restrictions but it was 1915 before this Commission was established. Little was actually achieved apart from the building of weirs over the next 20 years. We have not greatly progressed since this time! In the 1930s the construction of the Murray River Mouth barrages began as the last part of controlling the Murray River water levels as the locks along the river were nearing completion. Physical work on the barrages started in 1935 but preliminary work had started earlier. The five barrages were completed in 1940. They were designed to maintain the river levels between Goolwa and Lock One( Randell Lock) at Blanchetown and to keep the salt water from the Southern Ocean and the Coorong out of the Murray River channels to Lake Alexandrina. Basically the barrages keep lakes Alexandrina and Albert free of salt so that the water is usable by cattle and stock. The five barrages total 1.6 kms in length. We pass through the lock in the barrages to visit the Murray River estuary.
Looking down the River Witham towards the Grade I Listed High Bridge carrying the High Street over the River Witham in Lincoln. It is the oldest bridge in the United Kingdom which still has buildings on it. It was built about 1160, in 1235 the Chapel of St Thomas (dedicated to Thomas Becket) was built on the eastside of it, this was removed in 1762 and the still existing row of shops were built sometime before 1550.
Bridges like this were common in the Middle Ages, the best known being London Bridge, but most have long since been demolished because of their obstruction to the river flow and to shipping.
The Glory Hole is the name given by generations of boaters to the High Bridge in Lincoln. It has a narrow and crooked arch which sets a limit on the size of boats using the Witham and going from Brayford Pool, at the start of Foss Dyke, to Boston and the sea.
Since the 14th Century the bridge has contributed to floods in Lincoln and after any heavy rain the bridge is virtually unnavigable, which may be why it got its name. A design by William Jessop in the 19th century to reroute the waters of the Witham through the south of the town was never implemented.
Looking down the River Witham towards the Grade I Listed High Bridge carrying the High Street over the algae covered River Witham in Lincoln.
It is the oldest bridge in the United Kingdom which still has buildings on it. It was built about 1160, in 1235 the Chapel of St Thomas (dedicated to Thomas Becket) was built on the eastside of it, this was removed in 1762 and the still existing row of shops were built sometime before 1550.
Bridges like this were common in the Middle Ages, the best known being London Bridge, but most have long since been demolished because of their obstruction to the river flow and to shipping.
The Glory Hole is the name given by generations of boaters to the High Bridge in Lincoln. It has a narrow and crooked arch which sets a limit on the size of boats using the Witham and going from Brayford Pool, at the start of Foss Dyke, to Boston and the sea.
Since the 14th Century the bridge has contributed to floods in Lincoln and after any heavy rain the bridge is virtually unnavigable, which may be why it got its name. A design by William Jessop in the 19th century to reroute the waters of the Witham through the south of the town was never implemented.
The Lancaster Canal in Lancaster, Lancashire.
The canal's principal purpose was to transport coal north from the Lancashire Coalfields, and limestone south from Cumbria. The nature of these cargoes gave the waterway its local nickname - the Black and White Canal. The Glasson branch allowed cargo transfer from sea going vessels that could not navigate the increasingly shallow Lune Estuary into Lancaster.
The canal was built in two sections, north and south of the River Ribble. John Rennie designed major two aqueducts, one over the Lune at Lancaster, and one over the Ribble at Preston. Due to problems with the foundations of the Lune Aqueduct, the company ran out of sufficient money to build the Ribble aqueduct to connect the two sections. Instead, a tramway was built from Walton Summit to Preston. This worked adequately, and so the two sections were never connected. Subsequently, in 1816 a branch was opened from the southern section to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal at Johnsons Hillock. The section south of Preston became part of the much-delayed Leeds & Liverpool, who leased it in 1863: and the tramway from Walton Summit to Preston eventually closed in the 1880s.
North of Preston, though, the waterway was successful. Because of the lack of locks, the daily Packet Boat passenger service really was 'express' - Kendal could be reached from Preston in an unheard of 10 hours. In fact the service was so comfortable that passengers on the daily runs between Preston and Kendal remained loyal to the waterway for several years after the arrival of the trains.
Roads posed a more serious threat and after a general decline (the last cargo sailing in 1947) the construction of the M6 motorway through the line of the canal finally saw the 14 miles of the Northern Reaches isolated at Tewitfield Locks. The isolated, largely unnavigable section to the north is home to the only tunnel on the Lancaster Canal at Hincaster.
However, the modern age has benefited the Lancaster Canal in one way: the new Millennium Ribble Link. Opened in 2002 as the first new canal for 97 years, this connects the Lancaster to the national network via the River Ribble, the River Douglas and the Leeds & Liverpool Canal's Rufford Branch.
Information Source:
canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-rive...
Strabane Canal
The Strabane Canal was conceived by the Marquess of Abercorn as a way of encouraging industrial and commercial development in Strabane and its immediate surroundings, most of which was within his estates. An Act of Parliament was obtained to authorise the construction of the 6.4 kilometre (4.0 mi) canal, although the land required for the canal was bought by the Marquess's agents by agreement with the owners, and the project, which cost £11,858, was privately funded by the Marquess, assisted by a loan of £3,703 from the Irish Parliament. The canal ran from the tidal waters of Lough Foyle at Leck, some 16 kilometres (9.9 miles) upstream from Derry, to Strabane. It left the Foyle just above its junction with the Burn Dennett River (the Dennet), to enter Crampsie's Lock. The main water supply was from a stream which entered the canal above Devine's Lock, the only other lock built.
Construction began in late 1791, with John Whally of Coleraine acting as engineer, after the plans had been inspected by Richard Owen, then working on the extension of the Lagan Canal from Lisburn to Lough Neagh. Most of the canal was completed within a year, but construction of the locks and the junction with the Foyle took much longer, and was finally finished in 1795. An official opening took place on 21 March 1796, amidst great celebrations. The "respectable inhabitants" ate at the Abercorn's Arms, and proposed many toasts, while ale was supplied to the general populace, and there were bonfires and illuminations.
Operation
The locks were designed to accommodate sea-going schooners, capable of carrying 300 tons of cargo. Devine's lock was 108 by 23 feet (32.9 by 7.0 m), with 7 feet (2.1 m) of water over the cill, while Campsie's Lock was 117 by 24 feet (35.7 by 7.3 m), with a depth of 6.5 feet (2.0 m). Tolls were collected by the Marquess's agents, at a flat rate of two shillings (10p) per ton. An upstream trade in coal, timber, hardware and foodstuffs developed, although there was dissatisfaction with the tolls, which were considered by the merchants to be too high and unreasonable. Traffic from Strabane to Derry developed more slowly, but a trade in agricultural produce gradually increased. Lighters were towed by a steam tug to the entrance of the canal, while horses provided the power for the journey up to Strabane.
From 1820, a group of local people leased the canal from the Marquess, and continued to run it successfully. 583 lighters made the journey between Strabane and Derry in 1836, carrying a total of 10,535 tons, most of which was grain. A number of warehouses, grain stores and wharves were built along the banks at Strabane Basin. The canal brought considerable prosperity to Strabane and to Lifford in the first quarter of the nineteenth century and the towns became flourishing markets for agricultural produce. However, in 1847 a railway opened from Derry to Strabane, which was extended to Omagh in 1852, and a network of connecting railways soon developed. The effect on the canal was dramatic, and the canal was soon in financial difficulties. The canal company which had leased the canal for the last 40 years was wound up in 1860, to be replaced by the Strabane Steam Navigation Company. Although traffic remained at about 20,000 tons until the end of the century, this generated between £2,000 and £3,000 of income, and by the time operating costs and the lease were paid, the net annual revenue was always below £300. The new company was also wound up, to be replaced by the Strabane Canal Company in 1890, who took out a 31-year lease at £300 per year.
In 1888, the Railway & Canal Traffic Act had made it compulsory for every public company to notify the Board of Trade of their rates and charges. The Board of Trade had powers to set new rates if they did not approve of the existing rates. The Strabane Canal Company argued that it was a private company, and therefore exempt from the Act, while the Duke of Abercorn, who owned the canal, appealed to the House of Lords. Lieutenant-Colonel Addison was duly despatched from the Board of Trade to inspect the canal and the affairs of the company in 1898. Despite local allegations that the canal was unnavigable, and the findings of Addison that the east bank needed to be strengthened, the channel was shallow in places, and the gates needed to be repaired, he ruled that the canal was still navigable. However, the operating company was deemed to be a public company, to whom the 1888 Act applied, and the tonnage rate was reduced to 6d (2 1/2p) per ton by the Board of Trade, one quarter of the rate that had previously been charged.
Decline
Conditions continued to decline. The water was less than 2 feet (0.61 m) deep along much of the canal, as over 2 miles (3.2 km) of the east bank required repairs to make it watertight, and the lock gates leaked. Shoals and sandbanks had developed in the Foyle below the entrance to the canal, as a result of the failure of the Derry authorities to dredge the channel. Whereas coasters had been able to reach Strabane in the early years of the canal, this was no longer possible, since the construction of the Carlisle Bridge in Derry in the 1860s and a bridge carrying the narrow gauge Donegal Railway over the canal below Strabane Basin. Previously, the only bridges over the canal had been two wooden swing bridges, which allowed the passage of boats with masts or funnels. Despite the fact that lighters could only complete the journey if half full, trade continued, with Smyth's grain mill generating up to half the trade. Within the Strabane Basin, there were two saw mills, a tannery, a brewery and repair shops and docks which were used to service the lighters. A little further down, coal was unloaded to supply the gas works, where a jetty had been built into the canal.
When the narrow-gauge railway had been opened in 1900, it had been expected to provide competition for the existing line, but in practice, the two companies agreed rates, because the canal was still offering some competition. In 1910, carriage of foodstuffs and manure was still cheaper by water, and the canal basin was much nearer the town centre than the railway station. James McFarland, who had been the principal shareholder in the Canal Company since 1890, died around this time, and the lack of good management led to further decline. In 1912, the canal was bought from the Duke by the Strabane and Foyle Navigation Company Limited. The main shareholder was William Smyth, who owned the mill at Strabane (Smyth’s Mill), but despite attempts to improve the navigable depth of the canal, and the acquisition of a steam tug to tow the barges along the canal, traffic did not recover, and ceased in the early 1930s. Attempts were made to abandon the canal from 1944, and the section between Strabane and the swing bridge at Dysert was finally abandoned in 1962. The rest officially remained open.
Towpath
In June 2006 the Strabane Lifford Development Commission paid for a £1.3m cross-border waterways restoration contract. The project was launched by President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, in Lifford and intended to restore the 2.4 km (1.5 mi) of canal and two locks to working order.
The two sets of locks were restored but the construction work on the canal channel was of a poor standard.
This work also included the building of a footbridge, which when completed did not satisfy the council’s health and safety requirements and so the project stagnated.
On 4th June 2012, Strabane District Council announced that the canal towpath would be opened on a temporary basis for walkers, runners and cyclists to avail of during the summer. A considerable amount of redevelopment has taken place to restore this part of the canal and it is envisaged that parking and toilet facilities will also be developed later that year.
The Foyle Canoe Trail will also be enhanced through the construction of three canoe ramps along the reopened stretch of canal. This work will be carried out as part of the Interreg IVA Programme for Rural Development and Priority Co-operation for a sustainable cross border region.
To get there, drive down the Greenlaw Road from the centre of Ballymagorry village towards the Foyle and there's a small parking area at the end of that road at Devine's Lock. There are a couple of blind corners on the narrow Greenlaw Road, so care is needed.
Lighters
A lighter is a type of flat-bottomed barge used to transfer goods and passengers to and from moored ships. Lighters were traditionally unpowered and were moved and steered using long oars called "sweeps" and the motive power of water currents. The term is also used in the Lighter Aboard Ship (LASH) system.
Coasters
Coastal trading vessels, also known as coasters, are shallow-hulled ships used for trade between locations on the same island or continent. Their shallow hulls mean that they can get through reefs where deeper-hulled seagoing ships usually cannot. Coasters can load and unload cargo in shallow ports.
Port Hall House & Michael Priestley
If walking the banks of the River Foyle look out for Port Hall House, Ballindrait, a fine Georgian house on the Donegal side of the river. This small-scale Palladian country house dates from 1746 is arguably the finest building in its type and date in Donegal. It is built to a symmetrical style with central pedimented breakfront having Diocletian window openings. Gibbs surrounds to the openings and centring on a bold classical door case. It was built for John Vaughan of Buncrana Castle as a convenient base for when the Grand Jury was in session at Lifford. Both the courthouse in Lifford and Port Hall House display the carved coat of arms of George ll over their main doorway.
The architect was Michael Priestley and the list of other structures attributed to this man is impressive. In 1774, the nephew of Thomas Connolly, M.P. and Speaker of the Irish House of Commons (1715-1729), is said to have commissioned Priestley to build Lifford House, which became the base for the Grand Jury during the Lifford Assizes. We know it today as the Gateway Hotel. Other famous buildings connected to him include Dunmore House, Carrigans; Prehen House, Co. Derry; Strabane Town Hall; Church of St. John, Clondehorky; Bishop Barnard’s Chapel of Ease and Palace, Derry; Strabane canal and new street layout for the Earl of Abercorn; Boom Hall, Co. Derry; and last but not least, a remodelling of the Bishop’s Palace, Raphoe. Considering that “in the mid-18th century there were very few native architects practising in Ireland as a whole, whilst fewer still in the more remote areas”, Michael Priestley certainly left his mark in this part of the world.
Despite his contribution to the history of Lifford and surrounding area, Michael Priestley remains a bit of a mystery. One of the trustees, Nathaniel Nesbitt, thought him “a plain man, no great drawer of estimates, his skill lies mainly in his practice”. For the period, he is regarded as the “one figure who stands out with an identifiable style and artistic personality”. Yet we don’t even know the dates and places of his birth and death. His impact on the Lifford area, however, is undeniable and it is here that the Courthouse plays a crucial role. It is the only building in Ireland we know for certain to be Priestley’s work and because “it embodies in one façade many of the elements so characteristic of the work of the architect…it provides an essential reference which enables us to ascribe to him with confidence, further buildings in the region”.
Anthony Marreco (26th August 1915 – 4th June 2006)
Port Hall was owned by Anthony Marreco from 1956 until the 1983. He had a strong interest in building conservation and carefully repaired and conserved Port Hall during the 1960s. This important building is one of the most significant elements of the built heritage of Donegal, and forms the centrepiece of a group of related structures along with the warehouses to the rear, the walled garden to the south, and the other surviving elements to site.
River Foyle
The River Foyle (from Irish: an Feabhal) is a river in the northwest of the island of Ireland, which flows from the confluence of the rivers Finn and Mourne at the towns of Lifford in County Donegal, Republic of Ireland, and Strabane in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. From here it flows to the city of Derry, where it discharges into Lough Foyle and, ultimately, the Atlantic Ocean. The total length of the River Foyle is 129 km (80 miles). The river separates part of County Donegal from parts of both County Londonderry and County Tyrone. The district of County Donegal that borders the western bank of the River Foyle is traditionally known as the Laggan Valley. This district includes the villages of St. Johnston and Carrigans, both of which are nestled on the banks of the river.
Fishing
Prior to the Plantation of Ulster the fishing rights on the River would have been owned by the O’Neills and the O’Donnells, the Chieftains of Tír Eoghain and Donegal respectively. When the Plantation of Ulster started in 1609 a body called The Honourable The Irish Society had been set up by Royal Charter in 1613 to administer the affairs of the Plantation. The Society was then given the rights to the fishing on the river and on the River Bann, all except the parts of the rivers owned by the Bishop of Derry. In 1944 an action for trespass was taken by the Society against a fisherman from Porthall who they deemed to be fishing illegally. The case was heard by Mr Justice George Gavan Duffy in the high court in Dublin during 1947/48. The case was dismissed against the man. The Society then appealed the decision and also appealed to both Northern and Southern Governments at losing the case. Both Governments agreed to buy the fishing rights for the sum of £110,280 on condition that they drop the appeal. This led to the establishment of a commission to oversee the fishing on the river and on Lough Foyle. The body set up was called the Foyle Fisheries Commission and was established by a Bill passed simultaneously by the Governments of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland on 25 March 1952. The Foyle Fisheries Commission was disestablished on 10 April 2007 with the signing of the Foyle & Carlingford Fisheries Act 2007. The Foyle is believed to be one of the best salmon rivers in Ireland and is now managed by the Loughs Agency of the Foyle, Carlingford and Irish Lights Commission (FCILC).
Details of the fishing regulations are available from the Loughs Agency Website.
Beeston Canal was promoted by the Trent Navigation Company in 1794. This stretched from Beeston Cut to Lenton, over a weir at Beeston Rylands.
The canal allows river traffic to bypass an unnavigable stretch of the River Trent.
The Trent Navigation Company ceased to exist in 1940, when it was taken over by the Trent River Catchment Board. The Catchment Board was replaced by the Trent River Board in 1951 and by the Trent River Authority in 1965.
The weir from wikipedia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeston_Hydro#/media/File:Beeston_W...
Grosse Ile is the largest island in the Detroit River and is the second most populated island in the state of Michigan, after Copper Island. It is on the American side of the river and is part of Wayne County. The island is approximately 9.6 mi² (24.9 km²) and has a population of 10,894. The island is commonly believed to be conterminous with the overall Grosse Ile Township, but in actuality, the township consists of over a dozen islands— many of which are very small and uninhabited. To clarify this confusion, local residents refer to the island of Grosse Ile as the Big Island, Main Island, or simply The Island to distinguish it from the township as a whole. A large number of islands in the Detroit River are closely connected to Grosse Ile.
The name comes from the French translation for Large Island. The island was first given to the early French explorers by the Potawatomi in 1776. The Potawatomi referred to the island as Kitcheminishen. Brothers William and Alexander Macomb were the first European owners of the island. The island was first surveyed in 1819 and was incorporated into Monguagon Township in 1829. The island remained sparsely populated as an independent community but did not receive autonomy until the formation of Grosse Ile Township on October 27, 1914. Today, Grosse Ile is considered a Downriver community as part of Metro Detroit, although the island is markedly different from the surrounding communities.
The island is bordered on the west by the Trenton Channel and is connected to mainland Michigan by the Wayne County Bridge in the middle of the island and the Grosse Ile Toll Bridge on the northern end. The island itself is divided by two canals. The Thorofare Canal cuts diagonally across the middle of the island. Another unnamed and unnavigable canal cuts through the northern portion of the island. The area north of this canal to the northern point of the island, known as Hennepin Point (after Louis Hennepin), is undeveloped and houses a historic lighthouse. The Grosse Ile Municipal Airport occupies the southernmost area of Grosse Ile. Grosse Ile is also the center of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosse_Ile_(Michigan)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...
Looking out from Redcliffe Way Bridge across the River Avon towards the Grade II Listed 3-13 Redcliffe Parade West in Bristol, Avon.
The name "Avon" is a cognate of the Welsh word afon, "river". The Avon rises just north of the village of Acton Turville in South Gloucestershire, before flowing through Wiltshire. In its lower reaches from Bath to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth near Bristol the river is navigable and known as the Avon Navigation. The Avon is the 19th longest river in the UK at 75 miles (121 km) although there are just 19 miles (31 km) as the crow flies between the source and its mouth in the Severn Estuary.
The distribution of archaeological finds suggests that the western end of the river between Bath and Avonmouth formed a border between the Dobunni and Durotriges during the late Iron Age, prior to the Roman conquest of Britain. Further east, between Bath and what is now Wiltshire, it may also have formed a border of the territory ruled by the Belgae. After the Roman occupation the river formed a boundary between the lands of the Hwicce (which became Mercia) and the kingdom of Wessex.
The river Avon had been navigable from Bristol to Bath during the early years of the 13th century but construction of mills on the river forced its closure. The floodplain of the Avon, on which the city centre of Bath is built, has an altitude of about 59 ft (18 m) above sea level. The river, once an unnavigable series of braided streams broken up by swamps and ponds, has been managed by weirs into a single channel. Periodic flooding, which shortened the life of many buildings in the lowest part of the city, was normal until major flood control works were completed in the 1970s.
The Bristol Avon Navigation, which runs the 15 miles (24 km) from the Kennet and Avon Canal at Hanham Lock to the Bristol Channel at Avonmouth, was constructed between 1724 and 1727, following legislation passed by Queen Anne, by a company of proprietors and the engineer John Hore of Newbury. The first cargo of 'Deal boards, Pig-Lead and Meal' arrived in Bath in December 1727. It is now administered by the Canal & River Trust.
Throughout Bristol's history the Avon Gorge has been an important transport route, carrying the River Avon, major roads and two railways. The Bristol Channel and Avon estuary have a very high tidal range of 15 metres (49 ft), second only to Bay of Fundy in Eastern Canada; and the gorge is relatively narrow and meandering, making it notoriously difficult to navigate. Several vessels have grounded in the gorge including the SS Demerara soon after her launch in 1851, the schooner Gipsy in 1878, the steam tug Black Eagle in 1861 and the Llandaff City.
With a population of 85, the village of Old Appleton and its namesake bridge straddles Apple Creek, connecting Cape Girardeau County with Perry County, Missouri. The original French name for the creek was "Riviere à la Pomme" (apple river), named from the apple trees that had once grown there. The Old Appleton Bridge, built in 1879 by H.W. Sebastian & Co. of St. Louis, is one of the oldest bridges in Southeast Missouri, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1824, a mill was built on the northern bank of Apple Creek by Alfred McLane. Flood levels were exacerbated by the building of a mill dam that caused waters in the creek to rise and thus creating a necessity for a bridge. The creek was unnavigable at least twice a week and was negatively affecting the trade between Cape Girardeau and Perry Counties.
The three-span wrought-iron truss bridge used to carry Highway 25 across Apple Creek, but is now relegated to pedestrian traffic. The total length of the bridge is 161 feet. The piers are constructed out of limestone block masonry that was quarried locally from the Appleton Quarry.
In December of 1982, Apple Creek rose more than fifteen feet during heavy rains and the bridge washed away, leaving one end of the bridge resting on a gravel bar and the other on the north bank. In March of 1983, a crew worked to salvage the bridge by cutting it into pieces and labeling each piece. It took 25 years for the residents of Old Appleton to raise enough money to restore the bridge. In 2005 it was restored using 98% of its original parts. At that time, concrete piers were added to raise the bridge over the 1982 flood level. The high quality of wrought iron that was used to build the original bridge was one of the main reasons why it survived the 1982 flood. The cost of replacing the bridge was $519,000, with 20% coming from private donations and 80% from the Missouri Department of Transportation.
Although the mill (known as McLane Mill) survived the 1982 flood, a flash flood on May 16, 1986 destroyed the old mill, and it was not rebuilt. Remnants of the old mill can still be seen on the north bank of Apple Creek, the interior of which can be seen in one of these photos.
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The Grade I Listed 9-17 Pulteney Bridge in Bath, Somerset.
Pulteney Bridge was completed by 1774, and connected the city with the newly built Georgian town of Bathwick. Designed by Robert Adam for for William Johnstone Pulteney in a Palladian style, it is exceptional in having shops built across its full span on both sides. The shops were were designed by
Within 20 years of its construction, alterations were made that expanded the shops and changed the façades. By the end of the 18th century it had been damaged by floods, but it was rebuilt to a similar design. Over the next century alterations to the shops included cantilevered extensions on the bridge's north and south faces. In the 20th century several schemes were carried out to preserve the bridge and partially return it to its original appearance, enhancing its appeal as a tourist attraction.
The bridge is now 45 metres (148 ft) long and 18 metres (58 ft) wide. Although there have been plans to pedestrianise the bridge, it is still used by buses and taxis. The much photographed bridge and the weir below are close to the centre of the city, which is a World Heritage Site largely because of its Georgian architecture.
The name "Avon" is a cognate of the Welsh word afon "river", both being derived from the Common Brittonic abona, "river". "River Avon", therefore, literally means "River River"; several other English and Scottish rivers share the name. The County of Avon that existed from 1974 to 1996 was named after the river, and covered Bristol, Bath, and the lower Avon valley.
The Avon rises just north of the village of Acton Turville in South Gloucestershire, before flowing through Wiltshire. In its lower reaches from Bath to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth near Bristol the river is navigable and known as the Avon Navigation.
The Avon is the 19th longest river in the UK at 75 miles (121 km) although there are just 19 miles (31 km) as the crow flies between the source and its mouth in the Severn Estuary. The catchment area is 2,220 square kilometres (860 sq mi).
The river Avon had been navigable from Bristol to Bath during the early years of the 13th century but construction of mills on the river forced its closure. The floodplain of the Avon, on which the city centre of Bath is built, has an altitude of about 59 ft (18 m) above sea level. The river, once an unnavigable series of braided streams broken up by swamps and ponds, has been managed by weirs into a single channel. Periodic flooding, which shortened the life of many buildings in the lowest part of the city, was normal until major flood control works were completed in the 1970s.
Industrial ruins alongside the River Avon alongside Hotwell Road, in Hotwells, Bristol, Avon.
The name "Avon" is a cognate of the Welsh word afon, "river". The Avon rises just north of the village of Acton Turville in South Gloucestershire, before flowing through Wiltshire. In its lower reaches from Bath to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth near Bristol the river is navigable and known as the Avon Navigation. The Avon is the 19th longest river in the UK at 75 miles (121 km) although there are just 19 miles (31 km) as the crow flies between the source and its mouth in the Severn Estuary.
The distribution of archaeological finds suggests that the western end of the river between Bath and Avonmouth formed a border between the Dobunni and Durotriges during the late Iron Age, prior to the Roman conquest of Britain. Further east, between Bath and what is now Wiltshire, it may also have formed a border of the territory ruled by the Belgae. After the Roman occupation the river formed a boundary between the lands of the Hwicce (which became Mercia) and the kingdom of Wessex.
The river Avon had been navigable from Bristol to Bath during the early years of the 13th century but construction of mills on the river forced its closure. The floodplain of the Avon, on which the city centre of Bath is built, has an altitude of about 59 ft (18 m) above sea level. The river, once an unnavigable series of braided streams broken up by swamps and ponds, has been managed by weirs into a single channel. Periodic flooding, which shortened the life of many buildings in the lowest part of the city, was normal until major flood control works were completed in the 1970s.
The Bristol Avon Navigation, which runs the 15 miles (24 km) from the Kennet and Avon Canal at Hanham Lock to the Bristol Channel at Avonmouth, was constructed between 1724 and 1727, following legislation passed by Queen Anne, by a company of proprietors and the engineer John Hore of Newbury. The first cargo of 'Deal boards, Pig-Lead and Meal' arrived in Bath in December 1727. It is now administered by the Canal & River Trust.
Throughout Bristol's history the Avon Gorge has been an important transport route, carrying the River Avon, major roads and two railways. The Bristol Channel and Avon estuary have a very high tidal range of 15 metres (49 ft), second only to Bay of Fundy in Eastern Canada; and the gorge is relatively narrow and meandering, making it notoriously difficult to navigate. Several vessels have grounded in the gorge including the SS Demerara soon after her launch in 1851, the schooner Gipsy in 1878, the steam tug Black Eagle in 1861 and the Llandaff City.
Across from the Anglican Church is the oldest pub (and building) in Narrandera built in 1860 a year after Twynham surveyed the town site in 1859.
Narrandera. Population. 3,800.
There is a monument to Captain Charles Sturt in Narrandera near the Murrumbidgee. It was erected and unveiled on 12th December 1929 to celebrate the Centenary of Captain Sturt camping at Narrandera. Sturt passed here on 12th December 1829 camping on the river banks. Captain Sturt and his party of men began the journey on the south bank of Murrumbidgee on 29th November 1829 below Yass. The exploration party hauled the whaleboat in the drays and carts being pulled by the bullocks as they slowly advanced along the banks of the Murrumbidgee River until Christmas Day when they reached the Lachlan River, a tributary of the Murrumbidgee north of Balranald. This confluence is about 35 kms north of Balranald. They camped at Yanga near a big swamp from 26 December to 6 January. Then they began to assemble the whaleboat and they made a small skiff to be pulled behind it. The whaleboat was thought to be ideal as it had pointed ends for speed and it had a mast for sailing and usually it could be rowed along a river. Only after Sturt had explored and discovered that the Murrumbidgee did not end up in a huge marsh area with no outflowing river like the Macquarie River but continued as a major river did he prepare leave the Yanga camp. They launched the whaleboat and skiff and set off from here to find the riddle of the rivers. This occurred on the 6th January Sturt when Sturt selected some of the party to stay at that spot near Yanga for a week in case they could not continue if the river became unnavigable. Then that group was to return the drays and horses to Goulburn. They said their goodbyes to each other on 7th January and from 7th to 14th January Sturt and his party rowed but mainly sailed their way down the Murrumbidgee River from the Balranald area to its junction with a bigger river - the Murray River.
The white story of Narrandera goes back to 1848 when the Narrandera pastoral run, taken out by Edward Flood, was first acknowledged. It comprised nearly 78,000 acres. Others runs soon followed including Gillenbah on the southern of the Murrumbidgee River. But relations between the Wiradjuri people and the early pastoralists were not always cordial hence the naming of Murdering Island, one of the tiny islands in the meandering river. In 1873 a Wagga Wagga newspaper mentioned Murdering Island but it was 1895 when another newspaper wrote one man’s account of a massacre of a sub clan of Wiradjuri on this island in 1854. It was retaliation for Aborigines spearing cattle. According to this person the whites shot the men, women and children and only one member of the clan escaped alive. Most Aboriginal clans had 100 or less people in them as tribes were usually divided by eight totem groups so probably around 100 people were massacred. The island is near Poisoned Waterways Creek, an anabranch of the Murrumbidgee River, and it was as presumably named for being “poisoned” by Aboriginal bodies. No maps name Murdering Island.
After the passing of the Robertstown Act in 1861 the first selectors came and took up their 320 acre properties with the first in 1862. By 1872 the owners of Gillenbah run had 710 freehold acres. A small hotel near the river crossing had opened on Gillenbah run in 1856 followed by a store and post service in 1858. But Gillenbah did not become the main town. Surveyor Edward Twynham surveyed and laid out Narrandera in 1859 but it was not proclaimed until 1863 although town lots were sold in 1860. Further subdivisions occurred into the 1890s especially once the railway arrived in 1881. Narrandera got a Courthouse in 1862, a Post Office in 1861, a school building was started in 1870 but the building was not completed until 1873, and a new building added in 1883. A bank did not open until 1880 and this bank, the Commercial Bank of Sydney, built fine premises in 1884. The Bank of NSW followed them in 1888. Some buildings and features to look for in the Main Street area- East Street and Audley, Larmer, Douglas and Aspley streets.
....nor anytime soon. The weir, close to Millmead Lock, controlling water levels in the Wey Navigation and the natural river, collapsed on Saturday 2nd November washing away the footbridge. The water poured into the natural river, leaving banks exposed and rendering the Navigation unnavigable between Millmead Lock and St Catherine’s Lock. Fortunately only one boat is trapped, The Swingbridge Charity work boat, left high and dry. It’s unclear why the sluice gates were not opened a little way upstream to allow the water meadows to flood and take the volume and speed out of the Navigation flow when the water was running so high.
Grosse Ile is the largest island in the Detroit River and is the second most populated island in the state of Michigan, after Copper Island. It is on the American side of the river and is part of Wayne County. The island is approximately 9.6 mi² (24.9 km²) and has a population of 10,894. The island is commonly believed to be conterminous with the overall Grosse Ile Township, but in actuality, the township consists of over a dozen islands— many of which are very small and uninhabited. To clarify this confusion, local residents refer to the island of Grosse Ile as the Big Island, Main Island, or simply The Island to distinguish it from the township as a whole. A large number of islands in the Detroit River are closely connected to Grosse Ile.
The name comes from the French translation for Large Island. The island was first given to the early French explorers by the Potawatomi in 1776. The Potawatomi referred to the island as Kitcheminishen. Brothers William and Alexander Macomb were the first European owners of the island. The island was first surveyed in 1819 and was incorporated into Monguagon Township in 1829. The island remained sparsely populated as an independent community but did not receive autonomy until the formation of Grosse Ile Township on October 27, 1914. Today, Grosse Ile is considered a Downriver community as part of Metro Detroit, although the island is markedly different from the surrounding communities.
The island is bordered on the west by the Trenton Channel and is connected to mainland Michigan by the Wayne County Bridge in the middle of the island and the Grosse Ile Toll Bridge on the northern end. The island itself is divided by two canals. The Thorofare Canal cuts diagonally across the middle of the island. Another unnamed and unnavigable canal cuts through the northern portion of the island. The area north of this canal to the northern point of the island, known as Hennepin Point (after Louis Hennepin), is undeveloped and houses a historic lighthouse. The Grosse Ile Municipal Airport occupies the southernmost area of Grosse Ile. Grosse Ile is also the center of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosse_Ile_(Michigan)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...
"High Bridge carries the High Street across the River Witham in Lincoln in eastern England. It is the oldest bridge in the United Kingdom which still has buildings on it. The bridge was built about 1160 AD and a bridge chapel was built dedicated to Thomas Becket in 1235 on the east side of the bridge. The chapel was removed in 1762. The current row of timber framed shops on the west side of the bridge date from about 1550. The two upper storeys of the shops are jettied forward and at the corners there are carved figures of angels. The shops were partly dismantled and re-erected in 1901–02 under the supervision of the Lincoln architect William Watkins.
Bridges like this were common in the Middle Ages, the best known being London Bridge, but most have long since been demolished because of their obstruction to the river flow and to shipping.
The 'Glory Hole'
The Glory Hole is the name given by generations of boaters to the High Bridge in Lincoln. It has a narrow and crooked arch which sets a limit on the size of boats using the Witham and going from Brayford Pool, at the start of Foss Dyke, to Boston and the sea.
Since the 14th century the bridge has contributed to floods in Lincoln and after any heavy rain the bridge is virtually unnavigable, which may be why it got its name. A design by William Jessop in the 19th century to reroute the waters of the Witham through the south of the town was never implemented.
The bridge is both a grade I listed building and a scheduled monument.
Lincoln is a cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire in the East Midlands of England. The non-metropolitan district of Lincoln had a 2012 population of 94,600. The 2011 census gave the urban area of Lincoln, which includes North Hykeham and Waddington, a population of 130,200. Roman Lindum Colonia developed from an Iron Age settlement on the River Witham. The city's landmarks include Lincoln Cathedral, an example of English Gothic architecture and the tallest building in the world for over 200 years, and the 11th-century Norman Lincoln Castle. The city is home to the University of Lincoln and Bishop Grosseteste University, and to Lincoln City FC and Lincoln United FC." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.
The High Bridge carrying the High Street over the River Witham in Lincoln. It is the oldest bridge in the United Kingdom which still has buildings on it. It was built about 1160, in 1235 the Chapel of St Thomas (dedicated to Thomas Becket) was built on the eastside of it, this was removed in 1762 and the still existing row of shops were built sometime before 1550.
Bridges like this were common in the Middle Ages, the best known being London Bridge, but most have long since been demolished because of their obstruction to the river flow and to shipping.
The Glory Hole is the name given by generations of boaters to the High Bridge in Lincoln. It has a narrow and crooked arch which sets a limit on the size of boats using the Witham and going from Brayford Pool, at the start of Foss Dyke, to Boston and the sea.
Since the 14th Century the bridge has contributed to floods in Lincoln and after any heavy rain the bridge is virtually unnavigable, which may be why it got its name. A design by William Jessop in the 19th century to reroute the waters of the Witham through the south of the town was never implemented.
Narrandera. Population. 3,800.
There is a monument to Captain Charles Sturt in Narrandera near the Murrumbidgee. It was erected and unveiled on 12th December 1929 to celebrate the Centenary of Captain Sturt camping at Narrandera. Sturt passed here on 12th December 1829 camping on the river banks. Captain Sturt and his party of men began the journey on the south bank of Murrumbidgee on 29th November 1829 below Yass. The exploration party hauled the whaleboat in the drays and carts being pulled by the bullocks as they slowly advanced along the banks of the Murrumbidgee River until Christmas Day when they reached the Lachlan River, a tributary of the Murrumbidgee north of Balranald. This confluence is about 35 kms north of Balranald. They camped at Yanga near a big swamp from 26 December to 6 January. Then they began to assemble the whaleboat and they made a small skiff to be pulled behind it. The whaleboat was thought to be ideal as it had pointed ends for speed and it had a mast for sailing and usually it could be rowed along a river. Only after Sturt had explored and discovered that the Murrumbidgee did not end up in a huge marsh area with no outflowing river like the Macquarie River but continued as a major river did he prepare leave the Yanga camp. They launched the whaleboat and skiff and set off from here to find the riddle of the rivers. This occurred on the 6th January Sturt when Sturt selected some of the party to stay at that spot near Yanga for a week in case they could not continue if the river became unnavigable. Then that group was to return the drays and horses to Goulburn. They said their goodbyes to each other on 7th January and from 7th to 14th January Sturt and his party rowed but mainly sailed their way down the Murrumbidgee River from the Balranald area to its junction with a bigger river - the Murray River.
The white story of Narrandera goes back to 1848 when the Narrandera pastoral run, taken out by Edward Flood, was first acknowledged. It comprised nearly 78,000 acres. Others runs soon followed including Gillenbah on the southern of the Murrumbidgee River. But relations between the Wiradjuri people and the early pastoralists were not always cordial hence the naming of Murdering Island, one of the tiny islands in the meandering river. In 1873 a Wagga Wagga newspaper mentioned Murdering Island but it was 1895 when another newspaper wrote one man’s account of a massacre of a sub clan of Wiradjuri on this island in 1854. It was retaliation for Aborigines spearing cattle. According to this person the whites shot the men, women and children and only one member of the clan escaped alive. Most Aboriginal clans had 100 or less people in them as tribes were usually divided by eight totem groups so probably around 100 people were massacred. The island is near Poisoned Waterways Creek, an anabranch of the Murrumbidgee River, and it was as presumably named for being “poisoned” by Aboriginal bodies. No maps name Murdering Island.
After the passing of the Robertstown Act in 1861 the first selectors came and took up their 320 acre properties with the first in 1862. By 1872 the owners of Gillenbah run had 710 freehold acres. A small hotel near the river crossing had opened on Gillenbah run in 1856 followed by a store and post service in 1858. But Gillenbah did not become the main town. Surveyor Edward Twynham surveyed and laid out Narrandera in 1859 but it was not proclaimed until 1863 although town lots were sold in 1860. Further subdivisions occurred into the 1890s especially once the railway arrived in 1881. Narrandera got a Courthouse in 1862, a Post Office in 1861, a school building was started in 1870 but the building was not completed until 1873, and a new building added in 1883. A bank did not open until 1880 and this bank, the Commercial Bank of Sydney, built fine premises in 1884. The Bank of NSW followed them in 1888. Some buildings and features to look for in the Main Street area- East Street and Audley, Larmer, Douglas and Aspley streets.
The Gulf of Corryvreckan (from the Gaelic Coire Bhreacain meaning "cauldron of the speckled seas" or "cauldron of the plaid"), also called the Strait of Corryvreckan, is a narrow strait between the islands of Jura and Scarba, in Argyll and Bute, off the west coast of mainland Scotland.
It is possible for tourists to visit the site by way of boat trips from local harbours or sightseeing flights from Oban Airport.
Strong Atlantic currents and unusual underwater topography conspire to produce a particularly intense tidal race in the Corryvreckan channel. As the flood tide enters the narrow area between the two islands it speeds up to 8.5 knots (16 km/h) and meets a variety of seabed features including a deep hole and a rising pinnacle. These features combine to create whirlpools, standing waves and a variety of other surface effects.
The Corryvreckan is the third largest whirlpool in the world, and is on the northern side of the gulf, surrounding a pyramid-shaped basalt pinnacle that rises from depths of 70 to 29 m (230 to 95 ft) at its rounded top. Flood tides and inflow from the Firth of Lorne to the west can drive the waters of Corryvreckan to waves of more than 30 ft (9 m), and the roar of the resulting maelstrom can be heard 10 mi (16 km) away.
Although not, as is sometimes believed, formally classified by the Royal Navy as unnavigable, the nearby Grey Dogs, or Little Corryvreckan, are classified as such. The Admiralty's West Coast of Scotland Pilot guide to inshore waters calls it "very violent and dangerous" and says "no vessel should then attempt this passage without local knowledge". Experienced scuba divers who have explored the waters have described it as "potentially the most dangerous dive in Britain".
n Scottish mythology the hag goddess of winter, Cailleach Bheur, uses the gulf to wash her great plaid, and this ushers in the turn of the seasons from autumn to winter. As winter approaches, she uses the gulf as her washtub, and it is said the roar of the coming tempest can be heard from as far away as twenty miles (thirty kilometres), lasting for a period of three days. When she is finished with the washing, the cloth is pure white, and becomes the blanket of snow that covers the land.[3] The Cailleach occupying the whirlpool was described as "the fiercest of the Highland storm kelpies" by Alasdair Alpin MacGregor.[4]
Another legend surrounds Norse king Breacan. In various stories, Breacan moored his boat near the whirlpool to impress a local princess, or alternatively to flee from his father across the gulf. In both stories Breacan was swept into the whirlpool, and his body dragged ashore later by his dog. Breacan may be named after the whirlpool, or its current name may be a Gaelic pun on his name.
Charles Mackay's poem "The Kelpie of Corrievreckan" tells the story of a young woman who leaves her lover for a sea kelpie. She discovers too late that the kelpie lives at the bottom of the sea and she is drowned, "an awful warning to all fickle maidens". The words were adapted and set to music for piano and orchestra by Learmont Drysdale in the 1890s, and in 1939 Ruth Gipps set the poem to music for clarinet and piano.
Writing in the 7th century Adamnan called Corryvreckan "Charybdis Brecani". In Adomnan of Iona's 'Life of St Columba', the saint supposedly has miraculous knowledge of a particular bishop who ran into the 'whirlpool of Corryvreckan'. However, Adomnan says that this whirlpool was near Rathlin Island, suggesting perhaps either his geography was mistaken (although several other Irish sources of that time period agreed with Adomnan), or alternatively that originally a different place was known as the whirlpool of Corryvreckan and later ages gave this name to the current Corryvreckan, perhaps believing it was the one that Adomnan and others had written about in the 8th century.
Adomnan wrote:
Of the peril of the holy bishop Cólman moccu Sailni in the sea near Rathlin island: Likewise, another day, while St Columba was in his mother church, he suddenly smiled and called out: "Cólman mac Beognai has set sail to come here, and is now in great danger in the surging tides of the whirlpool of Corryvreckan. Sitting in the prow, he lifts up his hands to heaven and blesses the turbulent, terrible seas. Yet the Lord terrifies him in this way, not so that the ship in which he sits should be overwhelmed and wrecked by the waves, but rather to rouse him to pray more fervently that he may sail through the peril and reach us here."
In 1549, Dean Monro wrote of "Skarbay" that between it and "Duray": "ther runnes ane streame, above the power of all sailing and rowing, with infinit dangers, callit Corybrekan. This stream is aught myle lang, quhilk may not be hantit bot be certain tyds."[9]
In 1820 the world's first passenger paddleship the PS Comet was wrecked at nearby Craignish Point due to the strong currents in the area.
Writer George Orwell and his three-year-old son (who lived at Barnhill in northern Jura) were briefly shipwrecked on the skerry of Eilean Mòr (south of the whirlpool) when boating in the gulf, and Orwell's one-legged brother-in-law Bill Dunn was the first person to swim the gulf.
Natural history
Minke whales and porpoises swim in the fast-moving waters and only the most resilient plants and corals thrive on the seabed. Soft corals such as Alcyonium digitatum can be found in hollows and other sheltered locations. The central pinnacle supports dense mats of the hydroids Tubularia indivisa and Sertularia cupressina and the bryozoan Securiflustra securifrons. The most exposed areas are covered by the barnacles Balanus crenatus and B. hameri.
The area is currently being considered for Special Area of Conservation status.
Narrandera. Population. 3,800.
There is a monument to Captain Charles Sturt in Narrandera near the Murrumbidgee. It was erected and unveiled on 12th December 1929 to celebrate the Centenary of Captain Sturt camping at Narrandera. Sturt passed here on 12th December 1829 camping on the river banks. Captain Sturt and his party of men began the journey on the south bank of Murrumbidgee on 29th November 1829 below Yass. The exploration party hauled the whaleboat in the drays and carts being pulled by the bullocks as they slowly advanced along the banks of the Murrumbidgee River until Christmas Day when they reached the Lachlan River, a tributary of the Murrumbidgee north of Balranald. This confluence is about 35 kms north of Balranald. They camped at Yanga near a big swamp from 26 December to 6 January. Then they began to assemble the whaleboat and they made a small skiff to be pulled behind it. The whaleboat was thought to be ideal as it had pointed ends for speed and it had a mast for sailing and usually it could be rowed along a river. Only after Sturt had explored and discovered that the Murrumbidgee did not end up in a huge marsh area with no outflowing river like the Macquarie River but continued as a major river did he prepare leave the Yanga camp. They launched the whaleboat and skiff and set off from here to find the riddle of the rivers. This occurred on the 6th January Sturt when Sturt selected some of the party to stay at that spot near Yanga for a week in case they could not continue if the river became unnavigable. Then that group was to return the drays and horses to Goulburn. They said their goodbyes to each other on 7th January and from 7th to 14th January Sturt and his party rowed but mainly sailed their way down the Murrumbidgee River from the Balranald area to its junction with a bigger river - the Murray River.
The white story of Narrandera goes back to 1848 when the Narrandera pastoral run, taken out by Edward Flood, was first acknowledged. It comprised nearly 78,000 acres. Others runs soon followed including Gillenbah on the southern of the Murrumbidgee River. But relations between the Wiradjuri people and the early pastoralists were not always cordial hence the naming of Murdering Island, one of the tiny islands in the meandering river. In 1873 a Wagga Wagga newspaper mentioned Murdering Island but it was 1895 when another newspaper wrote one man’s account of a massacre of a sub clan of Wiradjuri on this island in 1854. It was retaliation for Aborigines spearing cattle. According to this person the whites shot the men, women and children and only one member of the clan escaped alive. Most Aboriginal clans had 100 or less people in them as tribes were usually divided by eight totem groups so probably around 100 people were massacred. The island is near Poisoned Waterways Creek, an anabranch of the Murrumbidgee River, and it was as presumably named for being “poisoned” by Aboriginal bodies. No maps name Murdering Island.
After the passing of the Robertstown Act in 1861 the first selectors came and took up their 320 acre properties with the first in 1862. By 1872 the owners of Gillenbah run had 710 freehold acres. A small hotel near the river crossing had opened on Gillenbah run in 1856 followed by a store and post service in 1858. But Gillenbah did not become the main town. Surveyor Edward Twynham surveyed and laid out Narrandera in 1859 but it was not proclaimed until 1863 although town lots were sold in 1860. Further subdivisions occurred into the 1890s especially once the railway arrived in 1881. Narrandera got a Courthouse in 1862, a Post Office in 1861, a school building was started in 1870 but the building was not completed until 1873, and a new building added in 1883. A bank did not open until 1880 and this bank, the Commercial Bank of Sydney, built fine premises in 1884. The Bank of NSW followed them in 1888. Some buildings and features to look for in the Main Street area- East Street and Audley, Larmer, Douglas and Aspley streets.
•At the Top Pub (Narrandera Hotel) turn left into Larmer Street which was the main street until the railway arrived in 1881. At 126 Larmer is a Victoria mansion built in 1870 after a flood that year destroyed the first building on the site which was a store. On next corner is former Post Office built in 1882 then converted into the Police Sergeants residence in 1900. Now vacant and shuttered up. On the next corner is Arts and Crafts Edwardian style Courthouse designed by architect by Walter Liberty Vernon in 1906. The original Courthouse built in 1879 is next door. On the next corner is the Anglican Church the oldest church in Narrandera built in 1879.The chancel and porch with tower were added in 1891. Across from the Anglican Church is the oldest pub (and building) in Narrandera built in 1860 a year after Twynham surveyed the town site in 1859. Return to Main Street and turn left.
• At the Murrumbidgee Hotel (built 1910 in Federation style) turn right into Audley St to see the Catholic Church and the Presbytery. Father Patrick Hartigan was appointed to Narrandera church in 1917. From 1906 he had been publishing bush poems under a pseudonym – John O’Brien. His most famous poem is probably Said Hanrahan (1919.) He retired from Narrandera in 1944. The Catholic Church was built in 1908 and consecrated 1910 and the Convent next door was built as a single storey building in 1908 with upper floor added in 1926.The Catholic Presbytery is higher up the street and is now the John O’Brien Centre but the John O’Brien memorial is beside the Church. Return to the Main Street. On the corner Audley and East streets is the former Joint Stock Bank. A two storey symmetrical solid building. Erected in 1882.
•The Council Chambers were built in 1912 and the clock tower was added in 1930. The building is an early Art Deco style building with horizontal layers and geometric features. In front of it is Memorial Park with its Royal Doulton Hankinson Memorial fountain. Donated in 1922 by an alderman and his wife to commemorate soldiers’ efforts in World War One. The only other Royal Doulton fountain known is in Pakistan. There is also a memorial to the Boer War in the park, World War Two, North Korean War and others.
•Opposite the Council Chamber is the NAB Bank. Built in the 1884 as the Commercial Bank of Sydney.
•Next corner left is the Post Office. Built in 1900 in Federation style. Turn left here into Twynham St. At 22 Twynham is the fantastic AMP Society building erected in 1922. The three figure sculpture on the front was the AMP logo. Worth a very short detour. 27 Twynham Street is Parkside Pioneer Cottage Museum. Not open on Mondays.
•Back in the Main St next to the old signed Narrandera Pharmacy at 126 East St is the former ANZ Bank. Some Art Nouveau features. Built around 1920.
•At 94 East St is the former Bank of NSW. Built in the 1920s in inter war Georgian style.
•At the next corner turn left into Douglas Street. On the corner with Cadell Street by the park is St Johns Presbyterian Church which was funded by the sum of £1,500 donated by Sir Samuel McCaughey of Yanco in 1905. The foundation stone was laid in 1907 and the church opened in 1908. Almost next door at 43 Douglas Street is the former Murrumbidgee Club. A fine villa house built in 1903 for this gentlemen’s club. The founding President was Sir Samuel McCaughey.
•Just south of the church is the Narrandera Information Centre with the world’s largest playable acoustic guitar. Worth a look.
Along the Murrumbidgee are the ruins of the old five storey brewery built in 1912 and the original 1881 wooden railway bridge. Nearby are the wetlands which provide an important habitat for wetland birds, frogs, reptiles, insects and mammals. George Wildman established the Narrandera Brewery and cordial Works in 1879. The business was purchased by William Jones in 1882 and renamed the Oakbank Brewery. Thomas Lincoln became a business partner in 1886. The brewery burnt down in 1894 and a new building was erected. The five storey tower was added to the brewery in 1912 and it was designed by Narrandera architect John Hill Robertson (1870 to 1955). At that time it employed 100 men and Narrandera beer was sold around the Riverina. In 1924 the Oakbank Brewery was sold to Tooths who closed it down with the loss of 50 Narrandera jobs. The cordial works continued with a changed name until 1957. The brewery needed a good water supply so it is located right on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River. Near the brewery ruins are the Narrandera wetlands with a fine one km walk round the lake with water birds, water plants, bird hides etc. Near the Murrumbidgee the town also has Lake Talbot recreation reserve on Bundidgerry Creek and anabranch of the Murrumbidgee River.
Narrandera. Population. 3,800.
There is a monument to Captain Charles Sturt in Narrandera near the Murrumbidgee. It was erected and unveiled on 12th December 1929 to celebrate the Centenary of Captain Sturt camping at Narrandera. Sturt passed here on 12th December 1829 camping on the river banks. Captain Sturt and his party of men began the journey on the south bank of Murrumbidgee on 29th November 1829 below Yass. The exploration party hauled the whaleboat in the drays and carts being pulled by the bullocks as they slowly advanced along the banks of the Murrumbidgee River until Christmas Day when they reached the Lachlan River, a tributary of the Murrumbidgee north of Balranald. This confluence is about 35 kms north of Balranald. They camped at Yanga near a big swamp from 26 December to 6 January. Then they began to assemble the whaleboat and they made a small skiff to be pulled behind it. The whaleboat was thought to be ideal as it had pointed ends for speed and it had a mast for sailing and usually it could be rowed along a river. Only after Sturt had explored and discovered that the Murrumbidgee did not end up in a huge marsh area with no outflowing river like the Macquarie River but continued as a major river did he prepare leave the Yanga camp. They launched the whaleboat and skiff and set off from here to find the riddle of the rivers. This occurred on the 6th January Sturt when Sturt selected some of the party to stay at that spot near Yanga for a week in case they could not continue if the river became unnavigable. Then that group was to return the drays and horses to Goulburn. They said their goodbyes to each other on 7th January and from 7th to 14th January Sturt and his party rowed but mainly sailed their way down the Murrumbidgee River from the Balranald area to its junction with a bigger river - the Murray River.
The white story of Narrandera goes back to 1848 when the Narrandera pastoral run, taken out by Edward Flood, was first acknowledged. It comprised nearly 78,000 acres. Others runs soon followed including Gillenbah on the southern of the Murrumbidgee River. But relations between the Wiradjuri people and the early pastoralists were not always cordial hence the naming of Murdering Island, one of the tiny islands in the meandering river. In 1873 a Wagga Wagga newspaper mentioned Murdering Island but it was 1895 when another newspaper wrote one man’s account of a massacre of a sub clan of Wiradjuri on this island in 1854. It was retaliation for Aborigines spearing cattle. According to this person the whites shot the men, women and children and only one member of the clan escaped alive. Most Aboriginal clans had 100 or less people in them as tribes were usually divided by eight totem groups so probably around 100 people were massacred. The island is near Poisoned Waterways Creek, an anabranch of the Murrumbidgee River, and it was as presumably named for being “poisoned” by Aboriginal bodies. No maps name Murdering Island.
After the passing of the Robertstown Act in 1861 the first selectors came and took up their 320 acre properties with the first in 1862. By 1872 the owners of Gillenbah run had 710 freehold acres. A small hotel near the river crossing had opened on Gillenbah run in 1856 followed by a store and post service in 1858. But Gillenbah did not become the main town. Surveyor Edward Twynham surveyed and laid out Narrandera in 1859 but it was not proclaimed until 1863 although town lots were sold in 1860. Further subdivisions occurred into the 1890s especially once the railway arrived in 1881. Narrandera got a Courthouse in 1862, a Post Office in 1861, a school building was started in 1870 but the building was not completed until 1873, and a new building added in 1883. A bank did not open until 1880 and this bank, the Commercial Bank of Sydney, built fine premises in 1884. The Bank of NSW followed them in 1888. Some buildings and features to look for in the Main Street area- East Street and Audley, Larmer, Douglas and Aspley streets.
•At the Top Pub (Narrandera Hotel) turn left into Larmer Street which was the main street until the railway arrived in 1881. At 126 Larmer is a Victoria mansion built in 1870 after a flood that year destroyed the first building on the site which was a store. On next corner is former Post Office built in 1882 then converted into the Police Sergeants residence in 1900. Now vacant and shuttered up. On the next corner is Arts and Crafts Edwardian style Courthouse designed by architect by Walter Liberty Vernon in 1906. The original Courthouse built in 1879 is next door. On the next corner is the Anglican Church the oldest church in Narrandera built in 1879.The chancel and porch with tower were added in 1891. Across from the Anglican Church is the oldest pub (and building) in Narrandera built in 1860 a year after Twynham surveyed the town site in 1859. Return to Main Street and turn left.
• At the Murrumbidgee Hotel (built 1910 in Federation style) turn right into Audley St to see the Catholic Church and the Presbytery. Father Patrick Hartigan was appointed to Narrandera church in 1917. From 1906 he had been publishing bush poems under a pseudonym – John O’Brien. His most famous poem is probably Said Hanrahan (1919.) He retired from Narrandera in 1944. The Catholic Church was built in 1908 and consecrated 1910 and the Convent next door was built as a single storey building in 1908 with upper floor added in 1926.The Catholic Presbytery is higher up the street and is now the John O’Brien Centre but the John O’Brien memorial is beside the Church. Return to the Main Street. On the corner Audley and East streets is the former Joint Stock Bank. A two storey symmetrical solid building. Erected in 1882.
•The Council Chambers were built in 1912 and the clock tower was added in 1930. The building is an early Art Deco style building with horizontal layers and geometric features. In front of it is Memorial Park with its Royal Doulton Hankinson Memorial fountain. Donated in 1922 by an alderman and his wife to commemorate soldiers’ efforts in World War One. The only other Royal Doulton fountain known is in Pakistan. There is also a memorial to the Boer War in the park, World War Two, North Korean War and others.
•Opposite the Council Chamber is the NAB Bank. Built in the 1884 as the Commercial Bank of Sydney.
•Next corner left is the Post Office. Built in 1900 in Federation style. Turn left here into Twynham St. At 22 Twynham is the fantastic AMP Society building erected in 1922. The three figure sculpture on the front was the AMP logo. Worth a very short detour. 27 Twynham Street is Parkside Pioneer Cottage Museum. Not open on Mondays.
•Back in the Main St next to the old signed Narrandera Pharmacy at 126 East St is the former ANZ Bank. Some Art Nouveau features. Built around 1920.
•At 94 East St is the former Bank of NSW. Built in the 1920s in inter war Georgian style.
•At the next corner turn left into Douglas Street. On the corner with Cadell Street by the park is St Johns Presbyterian Church which was funded by the sum of £1,500 donated by Sir Samuel McCaughey of Yanco in 1905. The foundation stone was laid in 1907 and the church opened in 1908. Almost next door at 43 Douglas Street is the former Murrumbidgee Club. A fine villa house built in 1903 for this gentlemen’s club. The founding President was Sir Samuel McCaughey.
•Just south of the church is the Narrandera Information Centre with the world’s largest playable acoustic guitar. Worth a look.
Along the Murrumbidgee are the ruins of the old five storey brewery built in 1912 and the original 1881 wooden railway bridge. Nearby are the wetlands which provide an important habitat for wetland birds, frogs, reptiles, insects and mammals. George Wildman established the Narrandera Brewery and cordial Works in 1879. The business was purchased by William Jones in 1882 and renamed the Oakbank Brewery. Thomas Lincoln became a business partner in 1886. The brewery burnt down in 1894 and a new building was erected. The five storey tower was added to the brewery in 1912 and it was designed by Narrandera architect John Hill Robertson (1870 to 1955). At that time it employed 100 men and Narrandera beer was sold around the Riverina. In 1924 the Oakbank Brewery was sold to Tooths who closed it down with the loss of 50 Narrandera jobs. The cordial works continued with a changed name until 1957. The brewery needed a good water supply so it is located right on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River. Near the brewery ruins are the Narrandera wetlands with a fine one km walk round the lake with water birds, water plants, bird hides etc. Near the Murrumbidgee the town also has Lake Talbot recreation reserve on Bundidgerry Creek and anabranch of the Murrumbidgee River.
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
In accents most forlorn,
Outside the church, ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn.
The congregation stood about,
Coat-collars to the ears,
And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,
As it had done for years.
"It's lookin' crook," said Daniel Croke;
"Bedad, it's cruke, me lad,
For never since the banks went broke
Has seasons been so bad."
"It's dry, all right," said young O'Neil,
With which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heel
And chewed a piece of bark.
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was published by Robbins-Tillquist Co. of Spokane, Washington. The card has a divided back.
In the space for the stamp they state:
'Place One Cent
Stamp Here.'
The Missouri River
The Missouri River is the longest river in North America. Rising in the Rocky Mountains of the Eastern Centennial Mountains of Southwestern Montana, the Missouri flows east and south for 2,341 miles (3,767 km) before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri.
The river drains a sparsely populated, semi-arid watershed of more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 km2), which includes parts of ten U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.
Although nominally considered a tributary of the Mississippi, the Missouri River above the confluence is much longer than the Mississippi above the confluence and carries a comparable volume of water. When combined with the lower Mississippi River, it forms the world's fourth longest river system.
For over 12,000 years, people have depended on the Missouri River and its tributaries as a source of sustenance and transportation. More than ten major groups of Native Americans populated the watershed, most leading a nomadic lifestyle and dependent on enormous bison herds that roamed through the Great Plains.
The first Europeans encountered the river in the late 17th. century, and the region passed through Spanish and French hands before becoming part of the United States through the Louisiana Purchase.
The Missouri River was one of the main routes for the westward expansion of the United States during the 19th. century. The growth of the fur trade in the early 19th. century laid much of the groundwork as trappers explored the region and blazed trails.
Pioneers headed west en masse beginning in the 1830's, first by covered wagon, then by the growing numbers of steamboats that entered service on the river.
Conflict between settlers and Native Americans in the watershed led to some of the most longstanding and violent of the American Indian Wars.
During the 20th century, the Missouri River basin was extensively developed for irrigation, flood control, and the generation of hydroelectric power.
Fifteen dams impound the main stem of the river, with hundreds more on tributaries. Meanders have been cut off, and the river channelized to improve navigation, reducing its length by almost 200 miles (320 km).
Although the lower Missouri valley is now a populous and highly productive agricultural and industrial region, heavy development has taken its toll on wildlife and fish populations as well as water quality.
The Source of the Missouri River
From the Rocky Mountains, three streams rise to form the headwaters of the Missouri River:
(i) The longest source stream begins near Brower's Spring in southwest Montana, 9,100 feet (2,800 m) above sea level on the southeastern slopes of Mount Jefferson in the Centennial Mountains.
From there it flows west then north; it runs first in Hell Roaring Creek then west into the Red Rock; swings northeast to become the Beaverhead River; and finally joins with the Big Hole to form the Jefferson River.
(ii) The Firehole River, which originates in northwest Wyoming at Yellowstone National Park's Madison Lake, joins with the Gibbon River to form the Madison River.
(iii) The Gallatin River flows out of Gallatin Lake which is also in Yellowstone National Park.
The Missouri River officially starts at the confluence of the Jefferson and Madison in Missouri Headwaters State Park near Three Forks, Montana, and is joined by the Gallatin a mile (1.6 km) downstream.
It then passes through Canyon Ferry Lake, a reservoir west of the Big Belt Mountains. Issuing from the mountains near Cascade, the river flows northeast to the city of Great Falls, where it drops over the Great Falls of the Missouri, a series of five substantial waterfalls.
It then winds east through a scenic region of canyons and badlands known as the Missouri Breaks, receiving the Marias River from the west, then widening into the Fort Peck Lake reservoir a few miles above the confluence with the Musselshell River.
Farther on, the river passes through the Fort Peck Dam, and immediately downstream, the Milk River joins from the north.
Flowing eastward through the plains of eastern Montana, the Missouri receives the Poplar River from the north before crossing into North Dakota where the Yellowstone River, its greatest tributary by volume, joins from the southwest.
At the confluence, the Yellowstone is actually the larger river. The Missouri then meanders east past Williston and into Lake Sakakawea, the reservoir formed by Garrison Dam.
Below the dam, the Missouri receives the Knife River from the west and flows south to Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, where the Heart River joins from the west.
It slows into the Lake Oahe reservoir just before the Cannonball River confluence. While it continues south, eventually reaching Oahe Dam in South Dakota, the Grand, Moreau and Cheyenne Rivers all join the Missouri from the west.
The Missouri then makes a bend to the southeast as it winds through the Great Plains, receiving the Niobrara River and many smaller tributaries from the southwest. It then proceeds to form the boundary of South Dakota and Nebraska, and is joined by the James River from the north.
At Sioux City the Big Sioux River comes in from the north, after which the Missouri forms the Iowa–Nebraska boundary. It flows south to the city of Omaha where it receives its longest tributary, the Platte River, from the west. Downstream, it begins to define the border between the states of Nebraska and Missouri, then flows between the states of Missouri and Kansas.
The Missouri then swings east at Kansas City, where the Kansas River enters from the west, and so on into north-central Missouri. To the east of Kansas City, the Missouri receives, on the left side, the Grand River.
It then passes south of Columbia and receives the Osage and Gasconade Rivers from the south downstream of Jefferson City. The river then rounds the northern side of St. Louis to join the Mississippi River on the border between Missouri and Illinois.
The Missouri Watershed
With a drainage basin spanning 529,350 square miles (1,371,000 km2), the Missouri River's catchment encompasses nearly one-sixth of the area of the United States. The watershed encompasses most of the central Great Plains, stretching from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Mississippi River Valley in the east, and from the southern extreme of western Canada to the border of the Arkansas River watershed.
Compared with the Mississippi River above their confluence, the Missouri is twice as long and drains an area three times as large. The Missouri accounts for 45 percent of the annual flow of the Mississippi past St. Louis, and as much as 70 percent in certain droughts.
In 1990, the Missouri River watershed was home to about 12 million people. This included the entire population of the U.S. state of Nebraska, parts of the U.S. states of Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming, and small southern portions of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The watershed's largest city is Denver, Colorado, with a population of more than six hundred thousand.
With more than 170,000 square miles (440,000 km2) under the plow, the Missouri River watershed includes roughly one-fourth of all the agricultural land in the United States, providing more than a third of the country's wheat, flax, barley, and oats.
However, only 11,000 square miles (28,000 km2) of farmland in the basin is irrigated. A further 281,000 square miles (730,000 km2) of the basin is devoted to the raising of livestock, mainly cattle.
Forested areas of the watershed, mostly second-growth, total about 43,700 square miles (113,000 km2). Urban areas, on the other hand, comprise less than 13,000 square miles (34,000 km2) of land. Most built-up areas are along the main stem and a few major tributaries, including the Platte and Yellowstone Rivers.
Elevations in the watershed vary widely, ranging from just over 400 feet (120 m) at the Missouri's mouth to the 14,293-foot (4,357 m) summit of Mount Lincoln in central Colorado. The river drops 8,626 feet (2,629 m) from Brower's Spring, the farthest source.
The Missouri's drainage basin has highly variable weather and rainfall patterns, Overall, the watershed is defined by a Continental climate with warm, wet summers and harsh, cold winters. Most of the watershed receives an average of 8 to 10 inches (200 to 250 mm) of precipitation each year. However, the western most portions of the basin in the Rockies as well as southeastern regions in Missouri may receive as much as 40 inches (1,000 mm).
The vast majority of precipitation occurs in summer in most of the lower and middle basin, although the upper basin is known for short-lived but intense summer thunderstorms such as the one which produced the 1972 Black Hills flood through Rapid City, South Dakota.
As one of the continent's most significant river systems, the Missouri's drainage basin borders on many other major watersheds of the United States and Canada. The Continental Divide, running along the spine of the Rocky Mountains, forms most of the western border of the Missouri watershed.
Major Tributaries of the Missouri River
Over 95 significant tributaries and hundreds of smaller ones feed the Missouri River, with most of the larger ones coming in as the river draws close to the mouth. Most rivers and streams in the Missouri River basin flow from west to east, following the incline of the Great Plains; however, some eastern tributaries such as the James, Big Sioux and Grand River systems flow from north to south.
The Missouri's largest tributaries by runoff are the Yellowstone in Montana and Wyoming, the Platte in Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska, and the Kansas–Republican/Smoky Hill and Osage in Kansas and Missouri. Each of these tributaries drains an area greater than 50,000 square miles (130,000 km2) or has an average discharge greater than 5,000 cu ft/s (140 m3/s).
The Yellowstone River has the highest discharge, even though the Platte is longer and drains a larger area. On the other end of the scale is the tiny Roe River in Montana, which at 201 feet (61 m) long is one of the world's shortest rivers.
As the Missouri drains a predominantly semi-arid region, its discharge is much lower and more variable than other North American rivers of comparable length. Before the construction of dams, the river flooded twice each year – once in the "April Rise" or "Spring Fresh", with the melting of snow on the plains of the watershed, and in the "June Rise", caused by snowmelt and summer rainstorms in the Rocky Mountains.
The latter tends to be far more destructive, with the river increasing to over ten times its normal discharge in some years.
The Missouri's discharge is affected by over 17,000 reservoirs with an aggregate capacity of some 141 million acre-feet (174 km3). By providing flood control, the reservoirs dramatically reduce peak flows and increase low flows. Evaporation from reservoirs significantly reduces the river's runoff, causing an annual loss of over 3 million acre-feet (3.7 km3).
The United States Geological Survey operates fifty-one stream gauges along the Missouri River. The river's average discharge at Bismarck, 1,314.5 miles (2,115.5 km) from the mouth, is 21,920 cu ft/s (621 m3/s). At Kansas City, 366.1 miles (589.2 km) from the mouth, the river's average flow is 55,400 cu ft/s (1,570 m3/s).
The Missouri's nickname, the "Big Muddy", was inspired by its enormous loads of sediment or silt - some of the largest of any North American river. In its pre-development state, the river transported some 175 to 320 million short tons per year.
The construction of dams and levees has drastically reduced this to 20 to 25 million short tons per year. Much of this sediment is derived from the river's floodplain, also called the meander belt; every time the river changed course, it would erode tons of soil and rocks from its banks. However, damming and channeling the river has kept it from reaching its natural sediment sources along most of its course.
Despite this, the river still transports more than half the total silt that empties into the Gulf of Mexico; the Mississippi River Delta, formed by sediment deposits at the mouth of the Mississippi, constitutes a majority of sediments carried by the Missouri.
Dams on the Missouri
In the late 19th. and early 20th. centuries, a great number of dams were built along the course of the Missouri, transforming 35 percent of the river into a chain of reservoirs.
River development was stimulated by a variety of factors, first by growing demand for electricity in the rural northwestern parts of the basin, and by floods and droughts that plagued rapidly growing agricultural and urban areas along the lower Missouri River. Small, privately owned hydroelectric projects existed since the 1890's, but the large flood-control and storage dams that characterize the middle reaches of the river today were not constructed until the 1950's.
Between 1890 and 1940, five dams were built in the vicinity of Great Falls to generate power from the Great Falls of the Missouri, a chain of giant waterfalls formed by the river in its path through western Montana.
Black Eagle Dam, built in 1891 on Black Eagle Falls, was the first dam of the Missouri. Black Eagle Dam was dynamited in 1908 in order to save Great Falls from the flood-wave caused by the failure of the Hauser Dam. Hauser was rebuilt in 1910 as a concrete gravity structure, and stands to this day.
Replaced in 1926 with a more modern structure, Black Eagle Dam was little more than a small weir atop Black Eagle Falls, diverting part of the Missouri's flow into the Black Eagle power plant.
The largest of the five dams, Ryan Dam, was built in 1913. The dam lies directly above the 87-foot (27 m) Big Falls, the largest waterfall of the Missouri.
The Missouri basin suffered a series of catastrophic floods, most notably in 1844, 1881, and 1926–1927. In 1940, as part of the Great Depression-era New Deal, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) completed Fort Peck Dam in Montana. Construction of this massive public works project provided jobs for more than 50,000 laborers during the Depression and was a major step in providing flood control to the lower half of the Missouri River.
However, the Fort Peck Dam only controls runoff from 11 percent of the Missouri River watershed, and had little effect on a severe snowmelt flood that struck the lower basin three years later. This event was particularly destructive as it submerged manufacturing plants in Omaha and Kansas City, greatly delaying shipments of military supplies in World War II.
Flooding of the Mississippi–Missouri river system were one of the primary reasons for which Congress passed the Flood Control Act of 1944, opening the way for USACE to develop the Missouri on a massive scale. The 1944 act authorized the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program, which was a composite of two widely varying proposals. The Pick plan, with an emphasis on flood control and hydroelectric power, called for the construction of large storage dams along the main stem of the Missouri. The Sloan plan, which stressed the development of local irrigation, included provisions for roughly 85 smaller dams on tributaries.
The flooding of lands along the Missouri River heavily impacted Native American groups whose reservations included fertile bottomlands and floodplains, especially in the arid Dakotas where it was some of the only good farmland they had.
These consequences were pronounced in North Dakota's Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, where 150,000 acres (61,000 ha) of land were taken by the construction of Garrison Dam. The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara/Sanish tribes sued the federal government on the basis of the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie which provided that reservation land could not be taken without the consent of both the tribes and Congress.
After a lengthy legal battle, the tribes were coerced in 1947 to accept a $5.1 million ($55 million today) settlement for the land, just $33 per acre. In 1949 this was increased to $12.6 million. The tribes were even denied the right to use the reservoir shore for grazing, hunting, fishing, and other purposes.
The six dams of the Mainstem System, chiefly Fort Peck, Garrison and Oahe, are among the largest dams in the world by volume; their reservoirs also rank among the biggest of the nation. Holding up to 74.1 million acre-feet (91.4 km3) in total, the six reservoirs can store more than three years' worth of the river's flow. Along with nearly 100 smaller dams on tributaries, namely the Bighorn, Platte, Kansas, and Osage Rivers, the system provides irrigation water to nearly 7,500 sq mi (19,000 km2) of land.
In addition to storing irrigation water, the system also includes an annual flood-control reservation of 16.3 million acre-feet (20.1 km3). Mainstem power plants generate about 9.3 billion KWh annually.
Navigation of the Missouri River
During the early 19th. century, at the height of the fur trade, steamboats and keelboats travelled nearly the whole length of the Missouri from Montana's rugged Missouri Breaks to the mouth, carrying beaver and buffalo furs to and from the areas the trappers frequented.
This resulted in the development of the Missouri River mackinaw, which specialized in carrying furs. Since these boats could only travel downriver, they were dismantled and sold for lumber upon their arrival at St. Louis.
Water transport increased through the 1850's with multiple craft ferrying pioneers, emigrants and miners; many of these runs were from St. Louis or Independence to near Omaha. There, most of these people would set out overland along the large but shallow and unnavigable Platte River, which pioneers described as "a mile wide and an inch deep" and "the most magnificent and useless of rivers".
Steamboat navigation peaked in 1858 with over 130 boats operating full-time on the Missouri, alongside many smaller vessels. Side-wheeler steamboats were preferred over the larger sternwheelers used on the Mississippi and Ohio because of their greater maneuverability.
The industry's success, however, did not guarantee safety. In the early decades before man controlled the river's flow, its rises and falls and its massive amounts of sediment, which prevented a clear view of the bottom, wrecked some 300 vessels. Because of the dangers of navigating the Missouri River, the average ship's lifespan was only about four years.
The development of the Transcontinental and Northern Pacific Railroads marked the beginning of the end of steamboat commerce on the Missouri. Outcompeted by trains, the number of boats slowly dwindled, until there were almost none left by the 1890's. Transport of agricultural and mining products by barge, however, saw a revival in the early twentieth century.
Passage to Sioux City
Since the beginning of the 20th. century, the Missouri River has been extensively engineered for water transport purposes, and about 32 percent of the river now flows through artificially straightened channels.
In 1912, the USACE was authorized to maintain the Missouri to a depth of six feet (1.8 metres) from the Port of Kansas City to the mouth, a distance of 368 miles (592 km). This was accomplished by constructing levees and wing dams to direct the river's flow into a straight, narrow channel which reduced sedimentation.
In 1925, the USACE began a project to widen the river's navigation channel to 200 feet (61 m); two years later, they began dredging a deep-water channel from Kansas City to Sioux City. These modifications have reduced the river's length from some 2,540 miles (4,090 km) in the late 19th. century to 2,341 miles (3,767 km) in the present day.
Gavins Point Dam at Yankton, South Dakota is the uppermost obstacle to navigation from the mouth on the Missouri today.
Construction of dams on the Missouri under the Pick-Sloan Plan in the mid-twentieth century was the final step in aiding navigation. The large reservoirs of the Mainstem System help provide a dependable flow to maintain the navigation channel year-round, and are capable of halting most of the river's annual freshets.
However, high and low water cycles of the Missouri - notably the protracted early-21st.-century drought in the Missouri River basin and historic floods in 1993 and 2011 - are difficult for even the massive Mainstem System reservoirs to control.
In 1945, the USACE began the Missouri River Bank Stabilization and Navigation Project, which would permanently increase the river's navigation channel to a width of 300 feet (91 m) and a depth of nine feet (2.7 metres). During work that continues to this day, the 735-mile (1,183 km) navigation channel from Sioux City to St. Louis has been controlled by building rock dikes to direct the river's flow and scour out sediments, sealing and cutting off meanders and side channels, and dredging the riverbed.
However, the Missouri has often resisted the efforts of the USACE to control its depth. In 2006, the U.S. Coast Guard stated that commercial barge tows ran aground in the Missouri River because the navigation channel had been severely silted. The USACE was blamed for failing to maintain the channel to the minimum depth.
A Final Thought on the Missouri From George Fitch
"There is only one river with a personality, a sense
of humor, and a woman's caprice; a river that goes
traveling sidewise, that interferes in politics,
rearranges geography, and dabbles in real estate;
a river that plays hide and seek with you today and
tomorrow follows you around like a pet dog with a
dynamite cracker tied to his tail. That river is the
Missouri."
"High Bridge carries the High Street across the River Witham in Lincoln in eastern England. It is the oldest bridge in the United Kingdom which still has buildings on it. The bridge was built about 1160 AD and a bridge chapel was built dedicated to Thomas Becket in 1235 on the east side of the bridge. The chapel was removed in 1762. The current row of timber framed shops on the west side of the bridge date from about 1550. The two upper storeys of the shops are jettied forward and at the corners there are carved figures of angels. The shops were partly dismantled and re-erected in 1901–02 under the supervision of the Lincoln architect William Watkins.
Bridges like this were common in the Middle Ages, the best known being London Bridge, but most have long since been demolished because of their obstruction to the river flow and to shipping.
The 'Glory Hole'
The Glory Hole is the name given by generations of boaters to the High Bridge in Lincoln. It has a narrow and crooked arch which sets a limit on the size of boats using the Witham and going from Brayford Pool, at the start of Foss Dyke, to Boston and the sea.
Since the 14th century the bridge has contributed to floods in Lincoln and after any heavy rain the bridge is virtually unnavigable, which may be why it got its name. A design by William Jessop in the 19th century to reroute the waters of the Witham through the south of the town was never implemented.
The bridge is both a grade I listed building and a scheduled monument.
Lincoln is a cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire in the East Midlands of England. The non-metropolitan district of Lincoln had a 2012 population of 94,600. The 2011 census gave the urban area of Lincoln, which includes North Hykeham and Waddington, a population of 130,200. Roman Lindum Colonia developed from an Iron Age settlement on the River Witham. The city's landmarks include Lincoln Cathedral, an example of English Gothic architecture and the tallest building in the world for over 200 years, and the 11th-century Norman Lincoln Castle. The city is home to the University of Lincoln and Bishop Grosseteste University, and to Lincoln City FC and Lincoln United FC." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.
The Meuse River (MAAS in Dutch) rises in Pouilly-en-Bassigny, commune of Le Châtelet-sur-Meuse on the Langres plateau in France from where it flows northwards past Sedan (the head of navigation) and Charleville-Mézières into Belgium.
At Namur it is joined by the River Sambre. Beyond Namur the Meuse winds eastwards, skirting the Ardennes, and passes Liège before turning north. The river then forms part of the Belgian-Dutch border, except that at Maastricht the border lies further to the west. In the Netherlands it continues northwards through Venlo closely along the border to Germany, then turns towards the west, where it runs parallel to the Waal and forms part of the extensive Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, together with the Scheldt river in its south and the Rhine in the north. The river has been divided near Heusden into the Afgedamde Maas on the right and the Bergse Maas on the left. The Bergse Maas continues under the name of Amer, which is part of De Biesbosch. The Afgedamde Maas joins the Waal, the main stem of the Rhine at Woudrichem, and then flows under the name of Boven Merwede to Hardinxveld-Giessendam, where it splits into Nieuwe Merwede and Beneden Merwede. Near Lage Zwaluwe, the Nieuwe Merwede joins the Amer, forming the Hollands Diep, which splits into Grevelingen and Haringvliet, before finally flowing into the North Sea.
The Meuse is crossed by railway bridges between the following stations (on the left and right banks respectively):
Netherlands: Hasselt (Belgium) – Maastricht (currently being put back online)
Weert - Roermond
Blerick – Venlo
Cuijk – Mook-Molenhoek
Ravenstein – Wijchen
's-Hertogenbosch – Zaltbommel
There are also numerous road bridges and around 32 ferry crossings.
The Meuse is navigable over a substantial part of its total length: In the Netherlands and Belgium, the river is part of the major inland navigation infrastructure, connecting the Rotterdam-Amsterdam-Antwerp port areas to the industrial areas upstream: Hertogenbosch, Venlo, Maastricht, Liège, Namur. Between Maastricht and Maasbracht, an unnavigable section of the Meuse is bypassed by the 36 km Juliana Canal. South of Namur, further upstream, the river can only carry more modest vessels, although a barge as long as 100 m. can still reach the French border town of Givet.
From Givet, the river is canalized over a distance of 272 kilometres. The canalized Meuse used to be called the "Canal de l'Est — Branche Nord" but was recently rebaptized into "Canal de la Meuse". The waterway can be used by the smallest barges that are still in use commercially (almost 40 metres long and just over 5 metres wide). Just upstream of the town of Commercy, the Canal de la Meuse connects with the Marne–Rhine Canal by means of a short diversion canal.
The Cretaceous sea reptile Mosasaur is named after the river Meuse. The first fossils of it were discovered outside Maastricht 1780.
Looking out from Prince Street Bridge down the River Avon in Bristol, Avon.
The name "Avon" is a cognate of the Welsh word afon "river", both being derived from the Common Brittonic abona, "river". "River Avon", therefore, literally means "River River"; several other English and Scottish rivers share the name. The County of Avon that existed from 1974 to 1996 was named after the river, and covered Bristol, Bath, and the lower Avon valley.
The Avon rises just north of the village of Acton Turville in South Gloucestershire, before flowing through Wiltshire. In its lower reaches from Bath to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth near Bristol the river is navigable and known as the Avon Navigation.
The Avon is the 19th longest river in the UK at 75 miles (121 km) although there are just 19 miles (31 km) as the crow flies between the source and its mouth in the Severn Estuary. The catchment area is 2,220 square kilometres (860 sq mi).
The river Avon had been navigable from Bristol to Bath during the early years of the 13th century but construction of mills on the river forced its closure. The floodplain of the Avon, on which the city centre of Bath is built, has an altitude of about 59 ft (18 m) above sea level. The river, once an unnavigable series of braided streams broken up by swamps and ponds, has been managed by weirs into a single channel. Periodic flooding, which shortened the life of many buildings in the lowest part of the city, was normal until major flood control works were completed in the 1970s.
One Sunday afternoon in August we landed at Boston's Logan Airport, picked up our rental car, and in 90 minutes we were in Perkins Cove enjoying a perfect Lobster Roll on a bench overlooking sailboats, fluffy blue skies and the famous Marginal Way, a one-mile walkway that runs along the rocky coast to Ogunquit. The SLIDESHOW of the set follows us around these two towns that afternoon and the next morning.
From Wikipedia:
"Ogunquit, which means "beautiful place by the sea" in the indigenous Abenaki language, was first a village within Wells, which was settled in 1641. The first sawmill here was established in 1686, and shipbuilding developed along the tidal Ogunquit River. Local shipwrights built schooners, brigs and dories.
At what was then called Fish Cove, near the unnavigable Josias River, fishing was a major livelihood. But the cove was unprotected by a headland or breakwater from Atlantic storms, so fishermen had to protect their boats by hauling them ashore each night. Resolving to create a safe anchorage, they formed the Fish Cove Harbor Association, and dug a channel across land they purchased to connect Fish Cove with the Josias River. When the trench was complete, erosion helped to further widen the passage. The resulting tidewater basin is called Perkins Cove, spanned by a manually operated draw footbridge. With a 3½-mile beach of pale sand and dunes forming a barrier peninsula, connected to the mainland in 1888 by bridge across the Ogunquit River, the village was discovered by artists. It became a popular art colony and tourist area. Particularly after 1898, when the Ogunquit Art Colony was established, it was not unusual to see both artists and fishermen working around Perkins Cove. To accommodate summer crowds, several seaside hotels and inns were built. Marginal Way, a scenic trail, runs along the coast from Perkins Cove to Ogunquit Beach."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogunquit,_Maine
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Grosse Ile is the largest island in the Detroit River and is the second most populated island in the state of Michigan, after Copper Island. It is on the American side of the river and is part of Wayne County. The island is approximately 9.6 mi² (24.9 km²) and has a population of 10,894. The island is commonly believed to be conterminous with the overall Grosse Ile Township, but in actuality, the township consists of over a dozen islands— many of which are very small and uninhabited. To clarify this confusion, local residents refer to the island of Grosse Ile as the Big Island, Main Island, or simply The Island to distinguish it from the township as a whole. A large number of islands in the Detroit River are closely connected to Grosse Ile.
The name comes from the French translation for Large Island. The island was first given to the early French explorers by the Potawatomi in 1776. The Potawatomi referred to the island as Kitcheminishen. Brothers William and Alexander Macomb were the first European owners of the island. The island was first surveyed in 1819 and was incorporated into Monguagon Township in 1829. The island remained sparsely populated as an independent community but did not receive autonomy until the formation of Grosse Ile Township on October 27, 1914. Today, Grosse Ile is considered a Downriver community as part of Metro Detroit, although the island is markedly different from the surrounding communities.
The island is bordered on the west by the Trenton Channel and is connected to mainland Michigan by the Wayne County Bridge in the middle of the island and the Grosse Ile Toll Bridge on the northern end. The island itself is divided by two canals. The Thorofare Canal cuts diagonally across the middle of the island. Another unnamed and unnavigable canal cuts through the northern portion of the island. The area north of this canal to the northern point of the island, known as Hennepin Point (after Louis Hennepin), is undeveloped and houses a historic lighthouse. The Grosse Ile Municipal Airport occupies the southernmost area of Grosse Ile. Grosse Ile is also the center of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosse_Ile_(Michigan)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...
The Lancaster Canal in Lancaster, Lancashire.
The canal's principal purpose was to transport coal north from the Lancashire Coalfields, and limestone south from Cumbria. The nature of these cargoes gave the waterway its local nickname - the Black and White Canal. The Glasson branch allowed cargo transfer from sea going vessels that could not navigate the increasingly shallow Lune Estuary into Lancaster.
The canal was built in two sections, north and south of the River Ribble. John Rennie designed major two aqueducts, one over the Lune at Lancaster, and one over the Ribble at Preston. Due to problems with the foundations of the Lune Aqueduct, the company ran out of sufficient money to build the Ribble aqueduct to connect the two sections. Instead, a tramway was built from Walton Summit to Preston. This worked adequately, and so the two sections were never connected. Subsequently, in 1816 a branch was opened from the southern section to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal at Johnsons Hillock. The section south of Preston became part of the much-delayed Leeds & Liverpool, who leased it in 1863: and the tramway from Walton Summit to Preston eventually closed in the 1880s.
North of Preston, though, the waterway was successful. Because of the lack of locks, the daily Packet Boat passenger service really was 'express' - Kendal could be reached from Preston in an unheard of 10 hours. In fact the service was so comfortable that passengers on the daily runs between Preston and Kendal remained loyal to the waterway for several years after the arrival of the trains.
Roads posed a more serious threat and after a general decline (the last cargo sailing in 1947) the construction of the M6 motorway through the line of the canal finally saw the 14 miles of the Northern Reaches isolated at Tewitfield Locks. The isolated, largely unnavigable section to the north is home to the only tunnel on the Lancaster Canal at Hincaster.
However, the modern age has benefited the Lancaster Canal in one way: the new Millennium Ribble Link. Opened in 2002 as the first new canal for 97 years, this connects the Lancaster to the national network via the River Ribble, the River Douglas and the Leeds & Liverpool Canal's Rufford Branch.
Information Source:
canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-rive...
Pictures taken on a trip to Stoke Bruene - Including a boat trip into Blisworth Tunnel.
At 3,076 yards long it is the third-longest navigable canal tunnel on the UK canal network after Standedge Tunnel and Dudley Tunnel. The tunnel has no tow path inside, but is wide enough for two narrowboats to pass in opposite directions
It was contrusted between 1793 & 1805 but due to changes in the shape of the tunnel over time, the tunnel became unnavigable. There was some major rebuilding of the tunnel in the 1980s, with sections lined with pre-cast concrete rings. It was also used to test out the materials that were later used on the Channel Tunnel. One of the unused rings is on display just outside the south portal.