The Grand Union Canal in England is part of the British canal system. Its main line starts in London and ends in Birmingham, stretching for 137 miles (220 km) with 166 locks. It has arms to places including Leicester, Slough, Aylesbury, Wendover and Northampton.
Sudbury is a market town in the English county of Suffolk. It is located on the River Stour near the Essex border, and is 60 miles (97 km) north-east of London. At the 2011 census, the parish has a population of 13,063, rising to 21,971 including the adjoining parish of Great Cornard. It is the largest town of Babergh, the local government district, and is represented in the UK Parliament as part of the South Suffolk constituency.
John Constable, was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home – now known as "Constable Country" – which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".
The River Great Ouse is a river in the United Kingdom, the longest of several British rivers called "Ouse". From Syresham in central England, the Great Ouse flows into East Anglia before entering the Wash, a bay of the North Sea. With a course of 143 miles (230 km), mostly flowing north and east, it is one of the longest rivers in the United Kingdom. The Great Ouse has been historically important for commercial navigation, and for draining the low-lying region through which it flows; its best-known tributary is the Cam, which runs through Cambridge. Its lower course passes through drained wetlands and fens and has been extensively modified, or channelised, to relieve flooding and provide a better route for barge traffic. Though the unmodified river probably changed course regularly after floods, it now enters the Wash after passing through the port of King's Lynn, south of its earliest-recorded route to the sea.
The River Stour is a river in East Anglia, England. It is 47 miles (76 km) long and forms most of the county boundary between Suffolk to the north, and Essex to the south. It rises in eastern Cambridgeshire, passes to the east of Haverhill, through Cavendish, Bures, Sudbury, Nayland, Stratford St Mary, Dedham and flows through the Dedham Vale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It becomes tidal just before Manningtree in Essex and joins the North Sea at Harwich.
Waterway restoration is the activity of restoring a canal or river, including special features such as warehouse buildings, locks, boat lifts, and boats. In the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, the focus of waterway restoration is on improving navigability, while in Australia the term may also include improvements to water quality. (For water quality improvement activity in the US and UK see stream restoration.)
The River Avon in central England flows generally southwestwards and is a major left-bank tributary of the River Severn, of which it is the easternmost. It is also known as the Warwickshire Avon or Shakespeare's Avon, to distinguish it from several other rivers of the same name in the United Kingdom.
The Stratford-upon-Avon Canal is a canal in the south Midlands of England. The canal, which was built between 1793 and 1816, runs for 25.5 miles (41.0 km) in total, and consists of two sections. The dividing line is at Kingswood Junction, which gives access to the Grand Union Canal. Following acquisition by a railway company in 1856, it gradually declined, the southern section being un-navigable by 1945, and the northern section little better.
Babergh is a local government district in Suffolk, England. Primarily a rural area, Babergh contains two towns of notable size: Sudbury, and Hadleigh, which was the administrative centre until 2017. Its council headquarters, which are shared with neighbouring Mid Suffolk, are now based in Ipswich.
Stratford St. Mary is a village in Suffolk, England in the heart of 'Constable Country'. John Constable painted a number of paintings in and around Stratford.
The Driffield Navigation is an 11-mile (18 km) waterway, through the heart of the Holderness Plain to the market town of Driffield, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The northern section of it is a canal, and the southern section is part of the River Hull. Construction was authorised in 1767, and it was fully open in 1770. Early use of the navigation was hampered by a small bridge at Hull Bridge, which was maintained by Beverley Corporation. After protracted negotiation, it was finally replaced in 1804, and a new lock was built to improve water levels at the same time. One curious feature of the new works were that they were managed quite separately for many years, with the original navigation called the Old Navigation, and the new works called the New Navigation. They were not fully amalgamated until 1888.
Bures St Mary is a civil parish in the Babergh district of the English county of Suffolk. In 2005 it had a population of 940, reducing to 918 at the 2011 Census. The parish covers the eastern part of the village of Bures, the western part being in the Bures Hamlet parish in Essex divided by the River Stour.
Dedham Vale is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the Essex-Suffolk border in east England. It comprises the area around the River Stour between Manningtree and Smallbridge Farm, 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Bures, including the village of Dedham in Essex.
Early locks were designed with a single gate, known as a flash lock or staunch lock. The earliest European references to what were clearly flash locks were in Roman times.
Dedham is a village within the borough of Colchester in northeast Essex, England, on the River Stour and the border of Essex and Suffolk. The nearest town to Dedham is the small market town of Manningtree.
Willy Lott's Cottage is a house in Flatford, East Bergholt, Suffolk, England which appears in several paintings by John Constable, notably The Hay Wain.
Kingswood Junction is a series of canal junction where the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal meets the Grand Union Canal at Kingswood, Warwickshire, England.
A navigation authority is a company or statutory body which is concerned with the management of a navigable canal or river.
The Lock is an oil painting by English artist John Constable, finished in 1824. It depicts a rural scene on the River Stour in the English county of Suffolk, one of six paintings within the Stour series. It was auctioned for £22,441,250 at Christie's in London on 3 July 2012.
