 | The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(May 2010) |
A horse-drawn boat or tow-boat is a historic boat operating on a canal, pulled by a horse walking beside the canal on a towpath.
| The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(May 2010) |
A horse-drawn boat or tow-boat is a historic boat operating on a canal, pulled by a horse walking beside the canal on a towpath.
The Romans are known to have used mules to haul boats on their waterways in the UK. [1] Boat horses were the prime movers of the Industrial Revolution, and they remained at work until the middle of the 20th century. A horse, towing a boat with a rope from the towpath, could pull fifty times as much cargo as it could pull in a cart or wagon on roads. In the early days of the Canal Age, from about 1740, all boats and barges were towed by horse, mule, hinny, pony or sometimes a pair of donkeys. Many of the surviving buildings and structures had been designed with horse power in mind. Horse-drawn boats were used well into the 1960s on UK canals for commercial transport, and are still used today by passenger trip boats and other pleasure traffic.
The Horseboating Society has the primary aims of preserving and promoting Horseboating on the canals of the United Kingdom. There are horseboat operators at Foxton, Godalming, Tiverton, Ashton-under-Lyne, Newbury, Llangollen and Maesbury Marsh, Shropshire on the Montgomery Canal.
Maria is Britain's oldest surviving wooden narrowboat, built in 1854 by Jinks Boatyard in Marple, and was never converted to have an engine. From 1854 to 1897, Maria was used to carry railway track ballast for the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. It was then used as a maintenance boat until 1962, lay abandoned for nine years until being salvaged in 1972 and converted to a passenger boat in 1978. In 2000 it was restored to near original operating condition. [2]
Maria is currently owned by Ashton Packet Boat Company. It is sometimes loaned to the Horseboating Society and has taken part in several of their events, including British Waterways' "Coal and Cotton" event, celebrating the Leeds and Liverpool Canal's history of transporting coal from Leeds and Wigan to Liverpool, and taking cotton from Liverpool docks to Leeds. [3] [4]
In 2006 it was the first boat to have been legged through Standedge Tunnel in 60 years. A UK Government minister and a local Member of Parliament took turns at legging Maria through the highest, longest, and deepest canal tunnel in the UK.
Barge often refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but on inland waterways, most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. The term barge has a rich history, and therefore there are many other types of barges.
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management or for conveyancing water transport vehicles. They carry free, calm surface flow under atmospheric pressure, and can be thought of as artificial rivers.
A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge. This mode of transport was common where sailing was impractical due to tunnels and bridges, unfavourable winds, or the narrowness of the channel.
A narrowboat is a particular type of canal boat, built to fit the narrow locks of the United Kingdom. The UK's canal system provided a nationwide transport network during the Industrial Revolution, but with the advent of the railways, commercial canal traffic gradually diminished and the last regular long-distance transportation of goods by canal had virtually disappeared by 1970. However, some commercial traffic continued. From the 1970s onward narrowboats were gradually being converted into permanent residences or as holiday lettings. Currently, about 8580 narrowboats are registered as 'permanent homes' on Britain's waterway system and represent a growing alternative community living on semi-permanent moorings or continuously cruising.
The Oxford Canal is a 78-mile (126 km) narrowboat canal in southern central England linking the City of Oxford with the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury via Banbury and Rugby. Completed in 1790, it connects to the River Thames at Oxford, and links with the Grand Union Canal, which it is combined with for 5 miles (8 km) between to the villages of Braunston and Napton-on-the-Hill.
The canal network of the United Kingdom played a vital role in the Industrial Revolution. The UK was the first country to develop a nationwide canal network which, at its peak, expanded to nearly 4,000 miles in length. The canals allowed raw materials to be transported to a place of manufacture, and finished goods to be transported to consumers, more quickly and cheaply than by a land based route. The canal network was extensive and included feats of civil engineering such as the Anderton Boat Lift, the Manchester Ship Canal, the Worsley Navigable Levels and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
Regent's Canal is a canal across an area just north of central London, England. It provides a link from the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, 550 yards (500 m) north-west of Paddington Basin in the west, to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in east London. The canal is 8.6 miles (13.8 km) long.
The Ashton Canal is a canal in Greater Manchester, England, linking Manchester with Ashton-under-Lyne.
The Huddersfield Narrow Canal is an inland waterway in northern England. It runs just under 20 miles (32 km) from Lock 1E at the rear of the University of Huddersfield campus, near Aspley Basin in Huddersfield, to the junction with the Ashton Canal at Whitelands Basin in Ashton-under-Lyne. It crosses the Pennines by means of 74 locks and the Standedge Tunnel.
The canals of the United Kingdom are a major part of the network of inland waterways in the United Kingdom. They have a varied history, from use for irrigation and transport, through becoming the focus of the Industrial Revolution, to today's role of recreational boating. Despite a period of abandonment, today the canal system in the United Kingdom is again increasing in use, with abandoned and derelict canals being reopened, and the construction of some new routes. Canals in England and Wales are maintained by navigation authorities. The biggest navigation authorities are the Canal & River Trust and the Environment Agency, but other canals are managed by companies, local authorities or charitable trusts.
Harecastle Tunnel is a canal tunnel on the Trent and Mersey Canal in Staffordshire between Kidsgrove and Tunstall. The tunnel, which is 1.6 mi (2.6 km) long, was once one of the longest in the country. Its industrial purpose was for the transport of coal to the kilns in the Staffordshire Potteries. The canal runs under the 195 m (640 ft) Harecastle Hill near Goldenhill, the highest district in Stoke-on-Trent.
Netherton Tunnel Branch Canal, in the West Midlands county, England, is part of the Birmingham Canal Navigations, (BCN). It was constructed at a 453–foot elevation, the Wednesbury or Birmingham level; it has no locks. The total length of the branch canal is 2.4 miles (3.9 km) and the canal tunnel is 9,081 feet (2,768 m) long.
A roving bridge, changeline bridge, turnover bridge, or snake bridge is a bridge over a canal constructed to allow a horse towing a boat to cross the canal when the towpath changes sides. This often involved unhitching the tow line, but on some canals they were constructed so that there was no need to do this by placing the two ramps on the same side of the bridge, which turned the horse through 360 degrees. On the Macclesfield Canal this was achieved by building spiral ramps and on the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal and others by constructing roving bridges of iron in two cantilevered halves, leaving a slot in the middle for the tow rope. This was also called a split bridge. For cost reasons many ordinary Stratford bridges were also built in this way as they had no towpath.
The Outer Pennine Ring is an English canal ring which crosses the Pennines between Manchester, Leeds and Castleford. Its route follows parts of eight canals, and includes the longest canal tunnel in England. The ring was completed in 2001, with the opening of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. Much of the route is shared with the North Pennine Ring, which crosses the Pennines by a different route on the southern leg.
Dukinfield Junction is the name of the canal junction where the Peak Forest Canal, the Ashton Canal and the Huddersfield Narrow Canal meet near Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, England. The area has been designated by Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council as a conservation area.
The Horseboating Society is a national society, with the primary aim being the preservation and promotion of Horseboating on the canals of Great Britain. The Society was founded on 19 January 2001 at the Ellesmere Port Boat Museum, and it is the only organisation in the UK solely dedicated to horseboating.
The Wooden Canal Boat Society (WCBS) is a waterway society and a registered charity in England, UK, based at Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester. The society started as the Wooden Canal Craft Trust in 1987, and by 1995 the trust owned six boats; it was wound up in 1997, and its assets were handed over to the WCBS.
The Canal & River Trust (CRT), branded as Glandŵr Cymru in Wales, holds the guardianship of 2,000 miles of canals and rivers, together with reservoirs and a wide range of heritage buildings and structures, in England and Wales. Launched on 12 July 2012, the Trust took over the responsibilities of the state-owned British Waterways in those two places.
The Burnley Embankment is an embankment carrying the Leeds and Liverpool Canal across the Calder and Brun valleys in Burnley, Lancashire. Also known as the Straight Mile, the embankment is 1,256 yards long and the canal runs up to 60 feet (18 m) above the valley floor. The structure was chosen as one of the original Seven Wonders of the Waterways, and has been awarded a Red Wheel by the Transport Trust.
