90-729: 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. First proposed by Thomas Homer in 1802 as a link from the Paddington arm of
180-547: A caisson of water in which boats float while being moved between two levels; and inclined planes where a caisson is hauled up a steep railway. To cross a stream, road or valley (where the delay caused by a flight of locks at either side would be unacceptable) the valley can be spanned by a navigable aqueduct – a famous example in Wales is the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (now a UNESCO World Heritage Site ) across
270-510: A drainage divide atop a ridge , generally requiring an external water source above the highest elevation . The best-known example of such a canal is the Panama Canal . Many canals have been built at elevations, above valleys and other waterways. Canals with sources of water at a higher level can deliver water to a destination such as a city where water is needed. The Roman Empire 's aqueducts were such water supply canals. The term
360-415: A "cistern", or depressed area just downstream from the fall, to "cushion" the water by providing a deep pool for its kinetic energy to be diffused in. Vertical falls work for drops of up to 1.5 m in height, and for discharge of up to 15 cubic meters per second. The transport capacity of pack animals and carts is limited. A mule can carry an eighth-ton [250 pounds (113 kg)] maximum load over
450-580: A 251-metre (274 yd) long tunnel under Maida Hill east of an area now known as ' Little Venice ', and a much shorter tunnel, just 48 metres (52 yd) long, under Lisson Grove . The Camden to Limehouse section, including the 886-metre (969 yd) long Islington Tunnel and the Regent's Canal Dock (used to transfer cargo from seafaring vessels to canal barges – today known as Limehouse Basin ), opened four years later on 1 August 1820. Various intermediate basins were also constructed (e.g.: Cumberland Basin to
540-510: A Quaker). Darby's son Abraham Darby the Younger was brought into the business as an assistant manager when old enough. The company's main business was producing cast-iron goods. Molten iron for this foundry work was not only produced from the blast furnaces, but also by remelting pig iron in air furnaces, a variant of the reverberatory furnace . The Company also became early suppliers of steam engine cylinders in this period. From 1720,
630-496: A canal has a series of dams and locks that create reservoirs of low speed current flow. These reservoirs are referred to as slack water levels , often just called levels . A canal can be called a navigation canal when it parallels a natural river and shares part of the latter's discharges and drainage basin , and leverages its resources by building dams and locks to increase and lengthen its stretches of slack water levels while staying in its valley . A canal can cut across
720-611: A cast-iron lintel bearing a date, which is currently painted as 1638, but an archive photograph has been found showing it as 1658. What ironworks existed at Coalbrookdale and from precisely what dates thus remains obscure. By 1688, the ironworks were operated by Lawrence Wellington, but a few years after the furnace was occupied by Shadrach Fox. He renewed the lease in 1696, letting the Great Forge and Plate Forge to Wellington. Some evidence may suggest that Shadrach Fox smelted iron with mineral coal, though this remains controversial. Fox
810-413: A combination of the three, depending on available water and available path: Smaller transportation canals can carry barges or narrowboats , while ship canals allow seagoing ships to travel to an inland port (e.g., Manchester Ship Canal ), or from one sea or ocean to another (e.g., Caledonian Canal , Panama Canal ). At their simplest, canals consist of a trench filled with water. Depending on
900-606: A company called the Regent's Canal and City Docks Railway Company at a cost of £1,170,585. The company altered its name to the North Metropolitan Railway and Canal Company by the Regent's Canal City and Docks Railway Act 1892 ( 55 & 56 Vict. c. clxxxviii), but no railway was ever built; instead it raised money for dock and canal improvement and eventually, in 1904, became the Regent's Canal and Dock Company. The Regent's Canal and Dock Company became part of
990-419: A coolant for the high-voltage cables. The canal is frequently used today for pleasure cruising; a regular waterbus service operates between Maida Vale and Camden, running hourly during the summer months. Due to the increase in cycle commuting since the 2005 London Bombings and increasing environmental awareness, the canal's towpath has become a busy cycle route for commuters. National Cycle Route 1 includes
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#17327725009161080-744: A headroom of 2.79 metres (9 ft 2 in). The navigational depth is, on average 1.15 m (3 ft 6 in). In 2012, playwright Rob Inglis was awarded a £16,000 Arts Council grant to write Regent's Canal, a Folk Opera , a musical that celebrates the 200th anniversary of the digging of the canal. It played in a number of locations around London in 2012. Canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation ) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi ). They carry free, calm surface flow under atmospheric pressure , and can be thought of as artificial rivers . In most cases,
1170-549: A journey measured in days and weeks, though much more for shorter distances and periods with appropriate rest. Besides, carts need roads. Transport over water is much more efficient and cost-effective for large cargoes. The oldest known canals were irrigation canals, built in Mesopotamia c. 4000 BC , in what is now Iraq . The Indus Valley civilization of ancient India ( c. 3000 BC ) had sophisticated irrigation and storage systems developed, including
1260-685: A junction with the old Grand Junction Canal at Little Venice , a short distance north of Paddington Basin . After passing through the Maida Hill and Lisson Grove tunnels, the canal curves round the northern edge of Regent's Park, passing London Zoo and skirting round the base of Primrose Hill . It continues through Camden Town and King's Cross Central . It performs a sharp bend at Camley Street Natural Park , following Goods Way where it flows behind both St Pancras railway station and King's Cross railway station . The canal opens out into Battlebridge Basin originally known as Horsfall Basin, home of
1350-498: A railway along its banks. The scheme was abandoned in the face of vigorous opposition, especially from the government who objected to the idea of a railway passing through Regent's Park . In 1859, two further schemes to convert the canal into a railway were proposed. One, from a company called the Central London Railway and Dock Company, was accepted by the directors, but once again the railway company failed. In 1860
1440-581: A rather low gradient for its time. The canal is still in use after renovation. In the Middle Ages , water transport was several times cheaper and faster than transport overland. Overland transport by animal drawn conveyances was used around settled areas, but unimproved roads required pack animal trains, usually of mules to carry any degree of mass, and while a mule could carry an eighth ton, it also needed teamsters to tend it and one man could only tend perhaps five mules, meaning overland bulk transport
1530-414: A result, the Regent's Canal was included in the scheme, running for part of its distance along the northern edge of Regent's Park . As with many Nash projects, the detailed design was passed to one of his assistants, in this case James Morgan , who was appointed chief engineer of the canal company. Work began on 14 October 1812. The first section from Paddington to Camden Town opened in 1816 and included
1620-460: A special general assembly of the proprietors approved the sale of the canal at the price of one million pounds to a group of businessmen who had formed the Regent's Canal Railway Company for the purpose. The advertisement for the company explained: The vast importance of this undertaking, whereby a junction will be effected between all existing and projected railways north of the Thames, combined with
1710-482: A third man and a young boy. The Macclesfield bridge was destroyed and rebuilt in 1876 reusing the cast iron pillars (made in Coalbrookdale according to an inscription at their top), but turning them by 180° (canal side towards tow path side) so tow rope grooves that were created before the incident can be seen on the outer side of the columns. The explosion was heard 20 miles away. Debris flew in all directions,
1800-459: A uniform altitude. Other, generally later, canals took more direct routes requiring the use of various methods to deal with the change in level. Canals have various features to tackle the problem of water supply. In cases, like the Suez Canal, the canal is open to the sea. Where the canal is not at sea level, a number of approaches have been adopted. Taking water from existing rivers or springs
1890-422: Is a channel that cuts across a drainage divide , making a navigable channel connecting two different drainage basins . Both navigations and canals use engineered structures to improve navigation: Since they cut across drainage divides, canals are more difficult to construct and often need additional improvements, like viaducts and aqueducts to bridge waters over streams and roads, and ways to keep water in
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#17327725009161980-408: Is a viaduct carrying the railway that delivered coal to the now demolished Ironbridge Power Station . One of the two tracks is due to be taken over by Telford Steam Railway as part of its southern extension from Horsehay. The Museum's archaeology unit continues to investigate the earlier history of Coalbrookdale, and has recently excavated the remains of the 17th century cementation furnaces , near
2070-552: Is lacking. He also acquired an interest in the patent for the cementation process of making steel in about 1615. Though forced to surrender the patent in 1619, he continued making iron and steel until his estate was sequestrated during the Civil War , but the works continued in use. In 1651, the manor was leased to Francis Wolfe, the clerk of the ironworks, and he and his son operated them as tenant of (or possibly manager for) Brooke's heirs. The surviving old blast furnace contains
2160-585: Is not strictly correct, but it was the first in Europe to operate successfully for more than a few years. Darby renewed his lease of the works in 1714, forming a new partnership with John Chamberlain and Thomas Baylies . They built a second furnace in about 1715, which was intended to be followed up with a furnace in Wales at Dolgûn near Dolgellau and in Cheshire taking over Vale Royal Furnace in 1718. However, Darby died prematurely at Madeley Court in 1717 –
2250-648: Is presumed, introduced in Italy by Bertola da Novate in the 16th century. This allowed wider gates and also removed the height restriction of guillotine locks . To break out of the limitations caused by river valleys, the first summit level canals were developed with the Grand Canal of China in 581–617 AD whilst in Europe the first, also using single locks, was the Stecknitz Canal in Germany in 1398. In
2340-599: Is rarely less than 30 metres (98 ft) wide. In the 5th century BC, Achaemenid king Xerxes I of Persia ordered the construction of the Xerxes Canal through the base of Mount Athos peninsula, Chalkidiki , northern Greece. It was constructed as part of his preparations for the Second Persian invasion of Greece , a part of the Greco-Persian Wars . It is one of the few monuments left by
2430-418: Is steeper than the desired canal gradient. They are constructed so the falling water's kinetic energy is dissipated in order to prevent it from scouring the bed and sides of the canal. A canal fall is constructed by cut and fill . It may be combined with a regulator, bridge, or other structure to save costs. There are various types of canal falls, based on their shape. One type is the ogee fall, where
2520-452: Is the pound lock , which consists of a chamber within which the water level can be raised or lowered connecting either two pieces of canal at a different level or the canal with a river or the sea. When there is a hill to be climbed, flights of many locks in short succession may be used. Prior to the development of the pound lock in 984 AD in China by Chhaio Wei-Yo and later in Europe in
2610-645: The Dissolution of the Monasteries , Madeley and the adjacent Little Wenlock belonged to Much Wenlock Priory . At the Dissolution there was a bloomsmithy called "Caldebroke Smithy". The manor passed about 1572 to John Brooke, who developed coal mining in his manor on a substantial scale. His son Sir Basil Brooke was a significant industrialist, and invested in ironworks elsewhere. It is probable that he also had ironworks at Coalbrookdale, but evidence
2700-658: The Elbe , Oder and Weser being linked by canals. In post-Roman Britain, the first early modern period canal built appears to have been the Exeter Canal , which was surveyed in 1563, and open in 1566. The oldest canal in the European settlements of North America, technically a mill race built for industrial purposes, is Mother Brook between the Boston, Massachusetts neighbourhoods of Dedham and Hyde Park connecting
2790-757: The London Canal Museum . Continuing eastwards beyond the Islington tunnel it forms the southern end of Broadway Market and meets the Hertford Union Canal at Victoria Park, East London . It turns south towards the Limehouse Basin , where it meets the Limehouse Cut , and ends as it joins the River Thames . On the Regent's Canal the maximum length is 21.95 metres (72.0 ft), with a beam of 4.27 metres (14.0 ft) and
Regent's Canal - Misplaced Pages Continue
2880-543: The Naviglio Grande built between 1127 and 1257 to connect Milan with the river Ticino . The Naviglio Grande is the most important of the lombard " navigli " and the oldest functioning canal in Europe. Later, canals were built in the Netherlands and Flanders to drain the polders and assist transportation of goods and people. Canal building was revived in this age because of commercial expansion from
2970-717: The Peacock Fountain in Christchurch , New Zealand. The blast furnaces were closed down, perhaps as early as the 1820s, but the foundries remained in use. The Coalbrookdale Company became part of an alliance of ironfounding companies called Light Castings Limited. This was absorbed by Allied Ironfounders Limited in 1929. This was in turn taken over by Glynwed which has since become Aga Foodservice. The Coalbrookdale foundry closed in November 2017. Several of Coalbrookdale's industrial heritage sites are to be found on
3060-545: The Phoenix metropolitan area was the most complex in ancient North America. A portion of the ancient canals has been renovated for the Salt River Project and now helps to supply the city's water. The Sinhalese constructed the 87 km (54 mi) Yodha Ela in 459 A.D. as a part of their extensive irrigation network which functioned in a way of a moving reservoir due to its single banking aspect to manage
3150-528: The River Brue at Northover with Glastonbury Abbey , a distance of about 1.75 kilometres (1,900 yd). Its initial purpose is believed to be the transport of building stone for the abbey, but later it was used for delivering produce, including grain, wine and fish, from the abbey's outlying properties. It remained in use until at least the 14th century, but possibly as late as the mid-16th century. More lasting and of more economic impact were canals like
3240-614: The Songhai Empire of West Africa, several canals were constructed under Sunni Ali and Askia Muhammad I between Kabara and Timbuktu in the 15th century. These were used primarily for irrigation and transport. Sunni Ali also attempted to construct a canal from the Niger River to Walata to facilitate conquest of the city but his progress was halted when he went to war with the Mossi Kingdoms . Around 1500–1800
3330-516: The Telford and Wrekin borough of Shropshire , England, containing a settlement of great significance in the history of iron ore smelting. It lies within the civil parish called the Gorge . This is where iron ore was first smelted by Abraham Darby using easily mined "coking coal". The coal was drawn from drift mines in the sides of the valley. As it contained far fewer impurities than normal coal,
3420-556: The reservoirs built at Girnar in 3000 BC. This is the first time that such planned civil project had taken place in the ancient world. In Egypt , canals date back at least to the time of Pepi I Meryre (reigned 2332–2283 BC), who ordered a canal built to bypass the cataract on the Nile near Aswan . In ancient China , large canals for river transport were established as far back as the Spring and Autumn period (8th–5th centuries BC),
3510-404: The stratum the canal passes through, it may be necessary to line the cut with some form of watertight material such as clay or concrete. When this is done with clay, it is known as puddling . Canals need to be level, and while small irregularities in the lie of the land can be dealt with through cuttings and embankments, for larger deviations other approaches have been adopted. The most common
3600-471: The 12th century. River navigations were improved progressively by the use of single, or flash locks . Taking boats through these used large amounts of water leading to conflicts with watermill owners and to correct this, the pound or chamber lock first appeared, in the 10th century in China and in Europe in 1373 in Vreeswijk , Netherlands. Another important development was the mitre gate , which was, it
3690-472: The 15th century, either flash locks consisting of a single gate were used or ramps, sometimes equipped with rollers, were used to change the level. Flash locks were only practical where there was plenty of water available. Locks use a lot of water, so builders have adopted other approaches for situations where little water is available. These include boat lifts , such as the Falkirk Wheel , which use
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3780-528: The Company began to produce the first cast-iron rails for railways . In 1778, Abraham Darby III undertook the building of the world's first cast-iron bridge, the iconic Iron Bridge , opened 1 January 1781. The fame of this bridge leads many people today to associate the iron-making part of the Industrial Revolution with the neighbouring village of Ironbridge , but in fact most of the work
3870-672: The Company in 1959. This became part of a larger project, the Ironbridge Gorge Museums . Its Museum of Iron is based in the Great Warehouse constructed in 1838 and Ironbridge Institute is based in the Long Warehouse, these two form the sides of an open space. On another side of which is the Old Blast Furnace, now under a building (erected in 1981) to protect it from the weather. The fourth side
3960-401: The Company operated a forge at Coalbrookdale but this was not profitable. In about 1754, renewed experiments took place with the application of coke pig iron to the production of bar iron in charcoal finery forges . This proved to be a success, and led to the partners building new furnaces at Horsehay and Ketley . This was the beginning of a great expansion in coke ironmaking. In 1767,
4050-547: The Iron Bridge, by William Reynolds and John Rose, producing Coalport porcelain. In 1802, the Coalbrookdale Company built a rail locomotive for Richard Trevethick , but little is known about it, including whether or not it actually ran. The death of a company workman in an accident involving the engine is said to have caused the company to not proceed to running it on their existing railway. To date,
4140-421: The Iron Bridge. It is unclear whether the date on one of the lower ones should be 1638 (as it is now painted) or 1658 (as shown on an old photo). The interior profile of the furnace is typical of its period, bulging around the middle, below which the boshes taper in again so that the charge descends into a narrower and hotter hearth, where the iron was molten. When Abraham Darby III enlarged the furnace, he only made
4230-590: The Persian Empire in Europe . Greek engineers were also among the first to use canal locks , by which they regulated the water flow in the Ancient Suez Canal as early as the 3rd century BC. There was little experience moving bulk loads by carts, while a pack-horse would [i.e. 'could'] carry only an eighth of a ton. On a soft road a horse might be able to draw 5/8ths of a ton. But if
4320-478: The Regent's Canal Company proposed a railway track alongside the canal from Kings Cross to Limehouse, but funds could not be raised. Further schemes over the next twenty years also came to nothing, with the Metropolitan Railway that opened to the south in 1863 serving much the same purpose of linking the lines radiating north of London. In 1883, after some years of negotiation, the canal was sold to
4410-785: The Southwest by 1300 CE. Archaeologists working at a major archaeological dig in the 1990s in the Tucson Basin, along the Santa Cruz River, identified a culture and people that may have been the ancestors of the Hohokam. This prehistoric group occupied southern Arizona as early as 2000 BCE, and in the Early Agricultural period grew corn, lived year-round in sedentary villages, and developed sophisticated irrigation canals. The large-scale Hohokam irrigation network in
4500-522: The advantage of a General City Terminus, is too obvious to require comment. By the proposed railway, passengers and goods will be brought into the heart of the City at a great saving of time and expense, and facilities will be afforded for the more expeditious transmission of the mails to most parts of the kingdom. The railway company subsequently failed, but in 1846 the directors of the canal went about trying to obtain an act of Parliament to allow them to build
4590-444: The boshes wider on the front and left sides, but not on the right where doing so would have entailed moving the water wheel. The mouth of the furnace is thus off-centre. Iron was now being made in large quantities for many customers. In the 1720s and 1730s, its main products were cast-iron cooking pots, kettles and other domestic articles. It also cast the cylinders for steam engines , and pig iron for use by other foundries . In
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#17327725009164680-436: The canal pressure with the influx of water. It was also designed as an elongated reservoir passing through traps creating 66 mini catchments as it flows from Kala Wewa to Thissa Wawa . The canal was not designed for the quick conveying of water from Kala Wewa to Thissa Wawa but to create a mass of water between the two reservoirs, which would in turn provided for agriculture and the use of humans and animals. They also achieved
4770-418: The canal to form a dam. They are generally placed in pre-existing grooves in the canal bank. On more modern canals, "guard locks" or gates were sometimes placed to allow a section of the canal to be quickly closed off, either for maintenance, or to prevent a major loss of water due to a canal breach. A canal fall , or canal drop, is a vertical drop in the canal bed. These are built when the natural ground slope
4860-579: The canal's original purpose of transshipping imports to the Midlands. The opening of the London and Birmingham Railway in 1838 actually increased the tonnage of coal carried by the canal. By the early twentieth century, with the Midland trade lost to the railways, and more deliveries made by road, the canal had fallen into a long decline. Just before 5am on 2 October 1874 the narrowboat barge Tilbury which
4950-462: The canal. Where large amounts of goods are loaded or unloaded such as at the end of a canal, a canal basin may be built. This would normally be a section of water wider than the general canal. In some cases, the canal basins contain wharfs and cranes to assist with movement of goods. When a section of the canal needs to be sealed off so it can be drained for maintenance stop planks are frequently used. These consist of planks of wood placed across
5040-469: The channel. There are two broad types of canal: Historically, canals were of immense importance to commerce and the development, growth and vitality of a civilization. In 1855 the Lehigh Canal carried over 1.2 million tons of anthracite coal; by the 1930s the company which built and operated it for over a century ceased operation. The few canals still in operation in our modern age are a fraction of
5130-399: The drop follows an s-shaped curve to create a smooth transition and reduce turbulence . However, this smooth transition does not dissipate the water's kinetic energy, which leads to heavy scouring. As a result, the canal needs to be reinforced with concrete or masonry to protect it from eroding. Another type of canal fall is the vertical fall, which is "simple and economical". These feature
5220-703: The early 1970s, at the end of 1973, the British Waterways Board embarked on a three-year programme to convert one chamber at each lock into an overflow weir to facilitate unmanned use by pleasure craft without the risk of serious flooding due to incorrect use of the paddles. The City Road Basin, the nearest to the City of London , soon eclipsed the Paddington Basin in the amount of goods carried, principally coal and building materials. These were goods that were being shipped locally, in contrast to
5310-499: The east of Regent's Park, Battlebridge Basin , close to Kings Cross , and City Road Basin ). Many other basins such as Wenlock Basin , Kingsland Basin, St. Pancras Stone and Coal Basin, and one in front of the Great Northern Railway 's Granary were also built, and some of these survive. All the locks were built with duplicate chambers to facilitate the heavy barge traffic. With the demise of commercial traffic in
5400-424: The first Abraham Darby rebuilt Coalbrookdale Furnace, and eventually used coke as his fuel. His business was that of an ironfounder, making cast-iron pots and other goods, an activity in which he was particularly successful because of his patented foundry method, which enabled him to produce cheaper pots than his rivals. Coalbrookdale has been claimed as the home of the world's first coke-fired blast furnace ; this
5490-670: The first summit level canal to use pound locks in Europe was the Briare Canal connecting the Loire and Seine (1642), followed by the more ambitious Canal du Midi (1683) connecting the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. This included a staircase of 8 locks at Béziers , a 157 metres (515 ft) tunnel, and three major aqueducts. Canal building progressed steadily in Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries with three great rivers,
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#17327725009165580-462: The freedom to make deliveries well away from rail lined road beds or ditches in the dirt which could not operate in the winter. The longest extant canal today, the Grand Canal in northern China, still remains in heavy use, especially the portion south of the Yellow River . It stretches from Beijing to Hangzhou at 1,794 kilometres (1,115 miles). Canals are built in one of three ways, or
5670-765: The higher waters of the Charles River and the mouth of the Neponset River and the sea. It was constructed in 1639 to provide water power for mills. In Russia, the Volga–Baltic Waterway , a nationwide canal system connecting the Baltic Sea and Caspian Sea via the Neva and Volga rivers, was opened in 1718. Coalbrookdale Coalbrookdale is a town in the Ironbridge Gorge and
5760-800: The iron it produced was of a superior quality. Along with many other industrial developments that were going on in other parts of the country, this discovery was a major factor in the growing industrialisation of Britain, which was to become known as the Industrial Revolution . Today, Coalbrookdale is home to the Ironbridge Institute , a partnership between the University of Birmingham and the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust offering postgraduate and professional development courses in heritage . Before
5850-402: The late 18th century, it sometimes produced structural ironwork, including for Buildwas Bridge. This was built in 1795, 2 miles up the river from the original Ironbridge. Due to advances in technology, it used only half as much cast iron despite being 30 feet (9 m) wider than the Ironbridge. The year after that, in 1796, Thomas Telford began a new project, Longdon-on-Tern Aqueduct . It carried
5940-422: The load were carried by a barge on a waterway, then up to 30 tons could be drawn by the same horse. — technology historian Ronald W. Clark referring to transport realities before the industrial revolution and the Canal age . Hohokam was a society in the North American Southwest in what is now part of Arizona , United States, and Sonora , Mexico. Their irrigation systems supported the largest population in
6030-424: The local trail: including: Coalbrookdale railway station , the Quaker Burial Ground, the Darby Houses, Tea Kettle Row and the Great Western Railway Viaduct. In the century after the Old Blast Furnace closed, it became buried. There was a proposal for the site to be cleared and the furnace dismantled, but instead, it was decided to excavate and preserve it. It and a small museum were opened to celebrate 250 years of
6120-457: The locomotive ran on a plateway with a track gauge of 3 ft ( 914 mm ). This was two years before Trevethick's first engine to tow a train was run at Penydarren in south Wales. In the 19th century, Coalbrookdale was noted for its decorative ironwork. It is here (for example) that the gates of London's Hyde Park were built. Other examples include the Coalbrookdale verandah at St John's in Monmouth , Wales, and as far away as
6210-412: The longest canal in the world today and the oldest extant one. It is 1,794 kilometres (1,115 mi) long and was built to carry the Emperor Yang Guang between Zhuodu ( Beijing ) and Yuhang ( Hangzhou ). The project began in 605 and was completed in 609, although much of the work combined older canals, the oldest section of the canal existing since at least 486 BC. Even in its narrowest urban sections it
6300-419: The longest one of that period being the Hong Gou (Canal of the Wild Geese), which according to the ancient historian Sima Qian connected the old states of Song, Zhang, Chen, Cai, Cao, and Wei. The Caoyun System of canals was essential for imperial taxation, which was largely assessed in kind and involved enormous shipments of rice and other grains. By far the longest canal was the Grand Canal of China , still
6390-405: The merged Grand Union Canal Company on 1 January 1929. A new purpose was found for the canal route in 1979, when the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) installed underground cables in a trough below the towpath between St John's Wood and City Road . These 400 kV cables now form part of the National Grid , supplying electrical power to London. Pumped canal water is circulated as
6480-506: The numbers that once fueled and enabled economic growth, indeed were practically a prerequisite to further urbanization and industrialization. For the movement of bulk raw materials such as coal and ores are difficult and marginally affordable without water transport. Such raw materials fueled the industrial developments and new metallurgy resulting of the spiral of increasing mechanization during 17th–20th century, leading to new research disciplines, new industries and economies of scale, raising
6570-488: The only known information about it comes from a drawing preserved at the Science Museum, London , together with a letter written by Trevithick to his friend Davies Giddy . The design incorporated a single horizontal cylinder enclosed in a return-flue boiler . A flywheel drove the wheels on one side through spur gears , and the axles were mounted directly on the boiler, with no frame. The drawing indicates that
6660-604: The pre-railroad days of the industrial revolution, water transport was the gold standard of fast transportation. The first artificial canal in Western Europe was the Fossa Carolina built at the end of the 8th century under personal supervision of Charlemagne . In Britain, the Glastonbury Canal is believed to be the first post-Roman canal and was built in the middle of the 10th century to link
6750-506: The roofs of surrounding houses blew off, windows smashed, trees uprooted and dead fish rained down on the West End. The tugboat's keel was found embedded in a house 300 yards away. The bridge was nick-named the 'Blow-Up Bridge'. The damage would have been far worse had the barge exploded in the highly populated areas of Camden and Islington , which the convoy had passed through earlier that morning. The canal company that owned Tilbury
6840-503: The same year as he began the house Dale End which became home to succeeding generations of the family in Coalbrookdale – followed quickly by his widow Mary. The partnership was dissolved before Mary's death, Baylies taking over Vale Royal. After Mary's death, Baylies had difficulty extracting his capital. The works then passed to a company led by his fellow Quaker Thomas Goldney II of Bristol and managed by Richard Ford (also
6930-515: The site of the Upper (formerly Middle) Forge . The Old Furnace began life as a typical blast furnace, but went over to coke in 1709. Abraham Darby I used it to cast pots, kettles and other goods. His grandson Abraham Darby III smelted the iron here for the first Ironbridge , the world's first iron bridge. The lintels of the furnace bear dated inscriptions. The uppermost reads "Abraham Darby 1777", probably recording its enlargement for casting
7020-480: The standard of living for any industrialized society. Most ship canals today primarily service bulk cargo and large ship transportation industries, whereas the once critical smaller inland waterways conceived and engineered as boat and barge canals have largely been supplanted and filled in, abandoned and left to deteriorate, or kept in service and staffed by state employees, where dams and locks are maintained for flood control or pleasure boating. Their replacement
7110-444: The stretch along the canal towpath from Limehouse Basin to Mile End. British Waterways carried out several studies into the effects of sharing the towpath between cyclists and pedestrians, all of which have concluded that despite the limited width there were relatively few problems at the time of the audits. More recently, in 2019, The Guardian reported on instances of conflict between pedestrians and cyclists. The Regent's Canal forms
7200-479: The then Grand Junction Canal (opened in 1801) with the River Thames at Limehouse , the Regent's Canal was built during the early 19th century after the Regent's Canal Act 1812 ( 52 Geo. 3 . c. cxcv) was passed. Noted architect and town planner John Nash was a director of the company; in 1811 he had produced a masterplan for George IV , then Prince Regent, to redevelop a large area of central north London – as
7290-573: The valley of the River Dee . Another option for dealing with hills is to tunnel through them. An example of this approach is the Harecastle Tunnel on the Trent and Mersey Canal . Tunnels are only practical for smaller canals. Some canals attempted to keep changes in level down to a minimum. These canals known as contour canals would take longer, winding routes, along which the land was
7380-466: Was also expensive, as men expect compensation in the form of wages, room and board. This was because long-haul roads were unpaved, more often than not too narrow for carts, much less wagons, and in poor condition, wending their way through forests, marshy or muddy quagmires as often as unimproved but dry footing. In that era, as today, greater cargoes, especially bulk goods and raw materials , could be transported by ship far more economically than by land; in
7470-458: Was an option in some cases, sometimes supplemented by other methods to deal with seasonal variations in flow. Where such sources were unavailable, reservoirs – either separate from the canal or built into its course – and back pumping were used to provide the required water. In other cases, water pumped from mines was used to feed the canal. In certain cases, extensive "feeder canals" were built to bring water from sources located far from
7560-466: Was condemned for gross negligence in permitting the “highly imprudent and improper” practice of carrying petroleum and gunpowder aboard the same barge. The incident accelerated the passing of the Explosives Act 1875 , which regulates the manufacture and carriage of dangerous substances. There were a number of abortive projects to convert the route of the canal into a railway. In September 1845
7650-412: Was done at Coalbrookdale, as there was no settlement at Ironbridge in the eighteenth century. Expansion of Coalbrookdale's industrial facilities continued, with the development of sophisticated ponds and culverts to provide water power, and even Resolution , a water-returning beam engine to recirculate this water. In 1795, the first porcelain factory near Coalbrookdale was founded at Coalport, east of
7740-570: Was evidently an iron founder , as he supplied round shot and grenade shells to the Board of Ordnance during the Nine Years War , but not later than April 1703, the furnace blew up. It remained derelict until the arrival of Abraham Darby the Elder in 1709. However the forges remained in use. A brass works was built sometime before 1712 (possibly as early as 1706), but closed in 1714. In 1709,
7830-470: Was gradual, beginning first in the United States in the mid-1850s where canal shipping was first augmented by, then began being replaced by using much faster , less geographically constrained & limited, and generally cheaper to maintain railways . By the early 1880s, canals which had little ability to economically compete with rail transport, were off the map. In the next couple of decades, coal
7920-424: Was increasingly diminished as the heating fuel of choice by oil, and growth of coal shipments leveled off. Later, after World War I when motor-trucks came into their own, the last small U.S. barge canals saw a steady decline in cargo ton-miles alongside many railways, the flexibility and steep slope climbing capability of lorries taking over cargo hauling increasingly as road networks were improved, and which also had
8010-680: Was loaded with sugar , nuts , three barrels of petroleum and around five tons of gunpowder exploded right under the Macclesfield Bridge, just outside London Zoo . Until the explosion, the Tilbury was part of a convoy consisting of a tugboat and three narrowboats travelling westwards heading for a quarry in the West Midlands. All the people on board died; captain Charles Baxton, a labourer named William Taylor,
8100-426: Was once used to describe linear features seen on the surface of Mars , Martian canals , an optical illusion. A navigation is a series of channels that run roughly parallel to the valley and stream bed of an unimproved river. A navigation always shares the drainage basin of the river. A vessel uses the calm parts of the river itself as well as improvements, traversing the same changes in height. A true canal
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