English Canals Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Duke of Bridgewater

In 1759 Frances Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, obtained the permission of Parliament to build a canal from his coal mines at Worsley to Manchester. He engaged James Brindley as engineer and the canal was completed in 1761. The Bridgewater Canal, as it is known, is considered by many to be the first modern British canal. The following year he built the Manchester to Liverpool Canal, again engineered by Brindley.
The Regent's Canal links the Grand Union Canal to Limehouse Basin in London. It was started in 1812 and enjoyed the patronage of the Prince Regent (later George IV).
To the best of my knowledge, there has never been an Earl of Shropshire or a Lord Llangollen. The Shropshire Union is an important canal in the north-west Midlands, with a branch running to Llangollen in Wales. The 'Ladies of Llangollen' were a pair of gloriously eccentric spinsters who lived together near the town in late Georgian times.

Answer: 1770s-1830s

Although canals have been built in Britain since Roman times, these were initially for irrigation or drainage. Natural waterways were also 'canalised' (deepened or widened) to improve them for boat traffic. The Sankey Canal (built 1755 - 1757 to carry coal from the Lancashire Coalfield to Liverpool) is sometimes cited as the first true canal, but part of its course used the existing Sankey Brook, and the Bridgewater Canal is claimed as the first wholly artificial waterway. From 1770 to 1830 the canal network grew to satisfy the need for economical bulk transport created by the Industrial Revolution, until by 1805 it covered some 3,000 miles.

By the 1840s, canals were facing increasing competition from the railways, which could carry goods and people far more quickly and often more directly to their destinations.

In the 20th century the development of road transport contributed further to the decline of the canals, and although the First and Second World Wars caused a brief recovery, commercial activity had virtually ceased by the 1960s.

Answer: A device for lowering or raising boats between stretches of water at different levels

The commonest type of lock by far is the pound lock. It consists of a chamber, usually built of masonry, which lies between the two lengths of water. It has water-tight gates at each end. For a boat to travel downhill, the lock must be full of water. The upper gate is opened, the boat enters the lock and the gate closed. The lock is then emptied of water by means of sluices or 'paddles', either built into the lower lock gates or in culverts built into the sides of the lock ('ground paddles'). When the level in the lock has sunk to that of the lower stretch, the bottom gate is opened and the boat leaves the lock. To travel uphill, the lock must first be empty, and the procedure is reversed. To confuse the issue, the word 'pound' is also used to describe a stretch of water between locks.
Generally speaking, on narrow canals there is a single gate at the upper end of the lock and a pair of gates at the lower end. When closed, these form a 'V' pointing upstream (i.e. into the lock), the better to withstand the water pressure when the lock is full.
There is no specific word to describe a boat's turning circle.
Although storage reservoirs were built on canals they were never referred to as locks.
Cargo was not carried on deck, but in the hold within the hull of the boat.

Answer: The size of the locks

The first lock on a modern canal was built by Brindley at Compton on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, which was 72 feet 7 inches long by 7 feet 6 inches wide. This was followed by those on the Trent and Mersey in 1776. These dimensions were due to reasons of economy and the technology available. For the same reasons the Harecastle Tunnel on the same canal was built to accommodate boats only seven feet wide. Most of the early canal ('narrow') locks had similar dimensions. This made the maximum payload of a boat about thirty tons, which became uneconomical in the face of increasing competition from the railways. In an attempt to overcome this, many later canals were built with locks which would accept boats up to fourteen feet wide, and some older canals were rebuilt to these standards.
I will not make any rude comments about woman drivers!
There is only one canal in Norfolk (the North Walsham and Dilham Canal), and although its locks are wider than the narrow gauge, they were built only to accommodate Norfolk wherries, a type of sailing vessel peculiar to the region. It has no connection to the main canal network.
Although the later canals tend to wider than the earlier ones, they are not shallower, and there is no hard-and-fast-rule.

Answer: A plan to unite four rivers by canal

The 'Grand Cross' was a scheme conceived by James Brindley to connect four of the main English rives - the Severn, the Mersey, the Humber and the Thames - by canal, and thus form inland waterway connections between Bristol, Liverpool, Hull and London.
He did not live to see this design completed but achieved a great deal with his Trent and Mersey and Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canals, which linked the Mersey to the Severn. The Oxford Canal was started by Brindley and continued after his death in 1772 by his assistant and brother-in-law Samuel Simcock. The Grand Junction Canal (built by William Jessop) extended the network to the Thames in London. The Humber was connected to the system via various waterways.

In the nineteenth century there was some concern about the morals of boatmen who had little opportunity to attend Divine Service, and there were several attempts to minister to their spiritual needs. One of these was the 'Boatmen's Floating Chapel', created in Oxford in 1839 using an old river barge. There is no specific reward for saving life on the waterways.
The Oxford Canal does cross the Grand Union, but the junctions are staggered so that the Oxford shares the Grand Union's waterway for a short distance. The junctions are at Braunston and Napton-on-the-hill.

Answer: Horses

Canal boats were traditionally drawn by horses walking on a towpath running beside the waterway. This was extremely economical at the time, as a single horse could pull a boat laden with thirty tons of cargo, more than ten times as much as it could by road.
Sail power is not practical on a canal because of the lack of room to manoeuvre, although it was used on some rivers.
Steam engines did exist during the Golden Age but they were too bulky and reduced the space available for cargo on a boat. Steam narrow boats enjoyed limited success in the early 20th century, generally boosting their cargo capacity by towing an unpowered boat or 'butty'.
Manpower would be a far more expensive and less effective method than horsepower. It was only used in narrow tunnels where no towpath was provided. Men would 'leg' the boat through by lying on the deck and 'walking' on the tunnel walls.

Answer: Narrow boat

The narrow boat design, which was flat-bottomed, seventy feet long and with a beam (width) of seven feet, evolved as a result of the size of the locks on the narrow canals, as originally laid down by Brindley. A typical boat of the middle of the nineteenth century was effectively an open rectangular box with a short tapering bow and stern. There was a small foredeck with a locker beneath for storing equipment and a cabin aft. These were ingeniously compact, providing living, cooking and sleeping accommodation for the boatman and his family in a space about seven feet square. The rest of the boat comprised the cargo hold, an open space which could be covered by canvas or tarpaulin to protect the cargo, supported by an A-frame (the 'cratch') forward, the cabin aft, and lengths of timber between. A short mast was mounted about one-third from the bows to take the towrope. Later boats which were steam or diesel powered had an engine room forward of the cabin. Narrow boats had a distinctive decorative scheme involving 'roses' and 'castles', painted in bright primary colours. Their origin is unclear.
The term 'longboat' was sometimes used on the Midland canals but did not become general.
'Keyboat' means nothing.
'Barge' is a general term for a cargo-carrying vessel (usually unpowered) but is not applicable to narrow boats.

Answer: Thomas Telford

Telford was a renowned civil engineer born in 1757 in the Scottish Borders. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a stonemason and later went to Edinburgh and then London. In 1787 he was appointed Surveyor of Public Works in Shropshire, and started to pursue a career in architecture. As the county surveyor, he became involved in building bridges and was eventually responsible for some 40 in the area. In 1793 he was appointed engineer on the Ellesmere Canal, which was originally planned to run between Netherpool on the River Mersey to Chester and Shrewsbury on the Severn, with a branch to the west to serve the mineral industries of North Wales. Only part of this route was completed, but the branch to Llangollen in Wales includes the magnificent Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, possibly Telford's most famous achievement on the English canal system. He embraced most aspects of civil engineering, going on to construct further canals, bridges, buildings, docks and roads. The latter inspired his friend, the poet Robert Southey, to dub him the 'Colossus of Roads'. His achievements are too many to enumerate.
Thomas Stevenson was another Scottish engineer, most famous for the Bell Rock Lighthouse.
John Smeaton was English, the first self-proclaimed 'civil engineer'. He also built canals, lighthouses, harbours and bridges. He is best remembered for the third Eddystone lighthouse.
The Englishman William Jessop was responsible for canals, harbours and early railways. He was noted for encouraging younger engineers, and gave Telford much help and guidance at the start of his career.

Answer: Narrow Boat

Tom Rolt was an engineer, author and, some would say, philosopher. He was born in 1910 and had a varied and fascinating career. As a boy, he was sent to Cheltenham College, but hated the regime of an English public school, and left at the age of 16. Thereafter he pursued a career in engineering, and, being made redundant during the Depression of the 1930s, set up a garage specialising in vintage sports cars. During this period he acquired his father's 1924 Alvis two-seater which he kept until he died in 1974. In 1939 he bought the narrow boat 'Cressy' from an uncle, who had fitted her with a Ford Model 'T' engine. Rolt converted her for comfortable living, and he and his new wife set out to explore the canals. This was the basis of his book 'Narrow Boat'. The Second World War intervened, and Rolt, a pacifist, worked at various civilian engineering jobs. After the war, Cressy was found to be dangerously rotten, and Rolt forsook his floating lifestyle and followed various interests, including co-founding the Inland Waterways Association (created to promote the conservation and improvement of the declining canal system), setting up the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society and increasing his literary output. He published over thirty-five books on subjects ranging from autobiography, inland waterways, ghost stories, biography and industrial archaeology. 'Narrow Boat' was largely responsible for arousing interest in the waterways in the post-war era.
'The Water Gypsies' was a novel published by A.P. Herbert in 1930. Professional boatmen disliked this term, as it implied a drifting, aimless life, whereas they were ruled by routes and schedules. Contrary to popular belief, boatmen were not of Romany background.
'Painted' boat was Tom Rolt's working title for 'Narrow Boat'
'The Cut' is a common term referring to a canal, but I have never heard of a book with that title.

Answer: A canal which, as far as possible, follows the contours of the terrain to avoid rises and falls

A contour canal follows as closely as possible the contours of the ground, in order to avoid engineering works such as tunnels, embankments and locks. It usually follows a meandering course which makes it longer than a direct route. Earlier navigations were generally contour canals, whereas later ones were more direct.