York
York is a historic walled city in North Yorkshire, England. At the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss, it is the historic county town of the historic county of Yorkshire. York Minster and a variety of cultural and sporting activities make it a popular tourist destination; the city was founded by the Romans as Eboracum in 71 AD. It became the capital of the Roman province of Britannia Inferior, of the kingdoms of Deira, Northumbria and Jórvík. In the Middle Ages, York grew as a major wool trading centre and became the capital of the northern ecclesiastical province of the Church of England, a role it has retained. In the 19th century, York became a hub of the railway network and a confectionery manufacturing centre; the economy of York is now dominated by services. The University of York and National Health Service are major employers, whilst tourism has become an important element of the local economy; the City of York local government district includes rural areas beyond the old city boundaries.
In 2011, it had a population of 198,051. The word York is derived from the Brittonic name Eburākon, a combination of eburos "yew-tree" and a suffix of appurtenance *-āko "belonging to-, place of-" meaning either "place of the yew trees"; the name Eboracum became the Anglian Eoforwic in the 7th century: a compound of Eofor-, from the old name, -wic a village by conflation of the element Ebor- with a Germanic root *eburaz. When the Danish army conquered the city in 866, its name became Jórvík; the Old French and Norman name of the city following the Norman Conquest was recorded as "Everwic" in works such as Wace's Roman de Rou. Jórvík, meanwhile reduced to York in the centuries after the Conquest, moving from the Middle English Yerk in the 14th century through Yourke in the 16th century to Yarke in the 17th century; the form York was first recorded in the 13th century. Many company and place names, such as the Ebor race meeting, refer to the Latinised Brittonic, Roman name; the 12th‑century chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his fictional account of the prehistoric kings of Britain, Historia Regum Britanniae, suggests the name derives from that of a pre-Roman city founded by the legendary king Ebraucus.
The Archbishop of York uses Ebor as his surname in his signature. Archaeological evidence suggests that Mesolithic people settled in the region of York between 8000 and 7000 BC, although it is not known whether their settlements were permanent or temporary. By the time of the Roman conquest of Britain, the area was occupied by a tribe known to the Romans as the Brigantes; the Brigantian tribal area became a Roman client state, but its leaders became more hostile and the Roman Ninth Legion was sent north of the Humber into Brigantian territory. The city was founded in 71 AD, when the Ninth Legion conquered the Brigantes and constructed a wooden military fortress on flat ground above the River Ouse close to its confluence with the River Foss; the fortress, whose walls were rebuilt in stone by the VI legion based there subsequent to the IX legion, covered an area of 50 acres and was inhabited by 6,000 legionary soldiers. The site of the principia of the fortress lies under the foundations of York Minster, excavations in the undercroft have revealed part of the Roman structure and columns.
The Emperors Hadrian, Septimius Severus and Constantius I all held court in York during their various campaigns. During his stay 207–211 AD, the Emperor Severus proclaimed York capital of the province of Britannia Inferior, it is that it was he who granted York the privileges of a'colonia' or city. Constantius I died in 306 AD during his stay in York, his son Constantine the Great was proclaimed Emperor by the troops based in the fortress. In 314 AD a bishop from York attended the Council at Arles to represent Christians from the province. While the Roman colonia and fortress were located on high ground, by 400 AD the town was victim to occasional flooding from the Rivers Ouse and Foss, the population reduced. York declined in the post-Roman era, was taken and settled by the Angles in the 5th century. Reclamation of parts of the town was initiated in the 7th century under King Edwin of Northumbria, York became his chief city; the first wooden minster church was built in York for the baptism of Edwin in 627, according to the Venerable Bede.
Edwin ordered the small wooden church be rebuilt in stone. In the following century, Alcuin of York came to the cathedral school of York, he had a long career as a teacher and scholar, first at the school at York now known as St Peter's School, founded in 627 AD, as Charlemagne's leading advisor on ecclesiastical and educational affairs. In 866, Northumbria was in the midst of internecine struggles when the Vikings raided and captured York. Under Viking rule the city became a major river port, part of the extensive Viking trading routes throughout northern Europe; the last ruler of an independent Jórvík, Eric Bloodaxe, was driven from the city in 954 AD by King Eadred in his successful attempt to complete the unification
Canal & River Trust
Canal & River Trust was launched on 12 July 2012, taking over the guardianship of British Waterways canals, rivers and docks in England and Wales. These waterways are accessible upon payment of a licence fee, ranging from a few pounds to over £1200, for use by boats, canoeists and other craft. Walkers and cyclists can use the extensive network of'Public Rights of Way' that run alongside the canals and rivers without payment of a fee, which were permissive towpaths; the concept of a National Waterways Conservancy was first championed and articulated in the 1960s by Robert Aickman the co-founder of the Inland Waterways Association, as a way to secure the future of Britain’s threatened inland waterways network. The idea was revived by the management of British Waterways in 2008 in response to increasing cuts in grant-in-aid funding, a drop in commercial income after the global financial crisis and growing calls by waterway users for a greater say in the running of the waterways. On 18 May 2009, launching ‘Twenty Twenty – a vision for the future of our canals and rivers’ on the Terrace of the House of Commons, British Waterways proposed a radical overhaul of waterway management and a transfer from public corporation to not-for-profit organisation.
The event was supported by speakers from each of the three main parties, Charlotte Atkins MP, Peter Ainsworth MP and Lembit Opik MP. British Waterways Chairman, Tony Hales stated: “The private sector built the canals, the public sector rescued them and I believe the third sector can be their future.” The six-month consultation that followed was met with strong objections from waterways users and other stakeholders. Despite this in November 2009, British Waterways published another paper ‘Setting a New Course: Britain’s Inland Waterways in the Third Sector’; this promoted the original suggestion by British Waterways, that they should become a private company inheriting all of the property and other waterway assets held in public ownership by British Waterways. In 24 March 2010, the Labour Government announced its decision to mutualise British Waterways, a commitment, repeated in the Labour Party’s 2010 Manifesto. Following the 2010 general election, the incoming Coalition Government reaffirmed its support for status change on the waterways, as an example of the Conservative Party’s commitment to Big Society.
Waterways Minister Richard Benyon MP stated on 21 June 2010 the Government’s “intention to move British Waterways to the civil society, subject to the outcome of the spending review.”Between March and June 2011, Defra ran a public consultation ‘A New Era for the Waterways’ on the overall structure of the proposed new body, the potential inclusion of the river navigations under the management of another public body, the Environment Agency, the abolition of the Inland Waterways Advisory Council. In October 2011, British Waterways announced a name and logo for a charitable trust which would inherit its English and Welsh operations: the Canal & River Trust for England and Glandŵr Cymru for Wales; the Trust received parliamentary approval in June. In July 2012, all British Waterways’ assets and responsibilities in England and Wales were transferred to the Canal & River Trust: launched on 12 July 2012. At the same time the Canal & River Trust merged with the England and Wales operations of The Waterways Trust, a charity affiliated to British Waterways, to avoid confusion and as both charities have similar aims.
BWML, a private company limited by guarantee, is wholly owned by the Canal & River Trust and manages some twenty marinas dotted all over the region. It involves retail sales and services and acts as a shop front in the issue of e.g. short-term licences. In Scotland, British Waterways continues to operate as a stand-alone public corporation under the trading name Scottish Canals; the trust is headed by a board of 10 appointed and unelected trustees with a chairman, supposed to ensure that the charity meets its objectives and sets strategy for the trust. The trust has a 35-member council which referees the business of the trust and whose construction is supposed to ensure that all waterways users, in all areas, have a representative voice. Many waterways users and stakeholders feel that the member council is little more than a token gesture to give the impression of accountability. An unelected management board of seven directors are collectively concerned with the ordinary running of the trust..
The Canal & River Trust has a governing council of 35 members. Members of the first council included a mix of nominated and elected individuals. Council advises on shaping policy and debating issues, providing guidance, perspective and a sounding board for the trustees. For each of the trust’s waterway areas there is a regional partnership drawn from local communities. In addition an all-Wales partnership will consider issues relating to Welsh waterways and a separate partnership exists for the trust's museums and attractions; the trustees are responsible for ensuring that the trust meets its charitable objectives. Trustees are the unpaid board directors of the trust, they take collective decisions on policy and overarching strategy and provide oversight of the executive directors. Trustees are responsible for determining strategy. Executive directors manage the everyday operation of the trust and develop policy and strategy for approval by the trustees; the trust is supported through a number of advisory committ
National Cycle Network
The National Cycle Network is the national cycling route network of the United Kingdom, established to encourage cycling throughout Britain, as well as for the purposes of bicycle touring. It was created by the charity Sustrans; the 14,000 mile network was used for over 230 million trips in 2005. Little of the NCN is on dedicated bike paths. Though many routes try to minimise contact with motor traffic, 70% of them are on roads; the NCN uses shared use paths, disused railways, minor roads, canal towpaths and traffic-calmed routes in towns and cities. The opening of the Bristol and Bath Railway Path in 1984, a 15-mile cycleway following a railway no longer in use, was the first part of the NCN; the original goal was to create 5,000 miles of signed cycle routes by 2005, with 50% of these not being on roads, all of it being "suitable for an unsupervised twelve year old." By mid-2000, 5,000 miles of route was signposted to an "interim" standard, a new goal was set to double that to 10,000 miles by 2005.
August 2005 saw the completion of that goal. As of August 2014, there were 14,700 miles of signed cycle route to NCN standards. There are ten national NCN routes; as of 2018 they are not all complete. Route 1: Dover – Shetland, along the east coast, via London, John o' Groats and Orkney Route 2: Dover – St Austell, along the south coast Route 3: Bristol – Land's End, incorporating the West Country Way via Chew Valley Lake, the Cornish Way Route 4: London – Fishguard, in West Wales, via Reading, Bristol, Caerphilly, Pontypridd and Llanelli. Route 5: Reading – Holyhead, via Birmingham, The Midlands and the North Wales coast Route 6: Windsor – Lake District, via Luton, Milton Keynes, Derby, Nottingham and Preston crossing the Pennine Cycleway Route 7: Carlisle – Inverness via Glasgow, incorporating the Clyde and Loch Lomond Cycleway Route 8: Cardiff – Holyhead, through the heart of Wales. Known as Lôn Las Cymru Route 9: Belfast – Newry Route 10: Tynemouth — Cockermouth. Was regional route 10 Reivers Cycle Route.
Return route for the C2C / Sea to Sea Cycle Route. Parallel to the C2C and Hadrian's Cycleway, it is a branch of National Route 1. NCN routes beginning with numbers 1 to 6 are in England, the routes that begin with a 7 start in the far north of England and Scotland, with 8 are in Wales, 9 in Northern Ireland; the main routes have one digit. There are many regional routes, reaching smaller towns and cities within ten designated regions; each region is divided into a maximum of nine areas. Regional route numbers comprise the area number 1 to 9 followed by another digit; this means that across the UK there could be 10 regional route 12s, for instance, as well as the national route 12. To reduce confusion, identically numbered areas in adjacent regions do not abut, routes with the same number are separated. In 2009 regional routes were being renumbered with 3-digit national numbers. Routes are numbered to match the motorways and major roads that connect the same destinations; the network is signposted using a white bicycle symbol on a blue background, with a white route number in an inset box, but with no destination names or distances.
National Route numbers have a red background, Regional Route numbers have a blue background. The system of symbols is based on that used by the Danish National Cycle Route network. One thousand "Millennium Mileposts" made from cast iron were funded by the Royal Bank of Scotland to mark the creation of the National Cycle Network, these are found along the NCN routes throughout the UK. There are four different types: "Fossil Tree", "The Cockerel", "Rowe Type", "Tracks"; the four artists are from each country of the UK, though all posts can be found in all four countries. Most mileposts contain a disk featuring symbols and text in code. There are 60 different designs, spread across the country, they form part of the Millennium Time Trail, a treasure hunt puzzle created by Sustrans in 2001. The Verse held within the coded text is: MEASURE EVERY HEARTBEAT TO COUNT OUT OUR LIFE'S SCORE/ IS "TIME TO ESCAPE" MEANT TO FIRE OUR COMING AGE?/ LOCKED IN SEASONS' BARS SWINGS PENDULUM'S CEASELESS CLAW/ LUNGS NEVER FULL ENSNARE US IN TIME'S EIGHT PIECE CAGE/ ENTROPY'S AIM SHOOTS LEPTONS IN DANCING CYCLES OF LIGHT/ NATIONS REACH OUT IN HOPE ACROSS TIME ZONES AND LONG DEGREES/ NO CORNERS TO HIDE US, EARTH’S SHADE SPINS HOURLY ROUND TO NIGHT/ IN ALL MIND-STREAMS WE WADE, OUR WORLD-LINES WEAVE PAST TAPESTRIES/ UNCERTAIN DREAMS EVOLVE IN THE STRUGGLE FOR THE “WHY?”/ MUST IN ALL THESE TIDES OF FAITH, FLOW STILL SUCH WAVES OF FEARS?/ PLACE AND TIME TEMPT FATES, BUT ALL LIFE’S NATURE IS TO DIE/ OUR ERA, STARS, BOWS OUT, PLAYING ITS MUSICAL SPHERES/ EVERY GAINED UTOPIAN GOAL MAKES US MANIFOLD TIME’S TREASURE/ MAPPED OUT, AS ABOVE SO BELOW, NERGAL TICKS OFF TIME’S MEASURE/// The National Byway, an alternative 4,500-mile sign-posted cycle network around Britain List of routes in Zone 4 of the National Cycle Network List of routes in Zone 8 of the National Cycle Network Sustrans, 2002.
The Official Guide To The National Cycle Network, 2nd ed. Italy: Canile & Turin. ISBN
River
A river is a natural flowing watercourse freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, lake or another river. In some cases a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of water. Small rivers can be referred to using names such as stream, brook and rill. There are no official definitions for the generic term river as applied to geographic features, although in some countries or communities a stream is defined by its size. Many names for small rivers are specific to geographic location. Sometimes a river is defined as being larger than a creek, but not always: the language is vague. Rivers are part of the hydrological cycle. Potamology is the scientific study of rivers, while limnology is the study of inland waters in general. Most of the major cities of the world are situated on the banks of rivers, as they are, or were, used as a source of water, for obtaining food, for transport, as borders, as a defensive measure, as a source of hydropower to drive machinery, for bathing, as a means of disposing of waste.
A river begins at a source, follows a path called a course, ends at a mouth or mouths. The water in a river is confined to a channel, made up of a stream bed between banks. In larger rivers there is also a wider floodplain shaped by flood-waters over-topping the channel. Floodplains may be wide in relation to the size of the river channel; this distinction between river channel and floodplain can be blurred in urban areas where the floodplain of a river channel can become developed by housing and industry. Rivers can flow down mountains, through valleys or along plains, can create canyons or gorges; the term upriver refers to the direction towards the source of the river, i.e. against the direction of flow. The term downriver describes the direction towards the mouth of the river, in which the current flows; the term left bank refers to the left bank in the direction of right bank to the right. The river channel contains a single stream of water, but some rivers flow as several interconnecting streams of water, producing a braided river.
Extensive braided rivers are now found in only a few regions worldwide, such as the South Island of New Zealand. They occur on peneplains and some of the larger river deltas. Anastamosing rivers are quite rare, they have multiple sinuous channels carrying large volumes of sediment. There are rare cases of river bifurcation in which a river divides and the resultant flows ending in different seas. An example is the bifurcation of Nerodime River in Kosovo. A river flowing in its channel is a source of energy which acts on the river channel to change its shape and form. In 1757, the German hydrologist Albert Brahms empirically observed that the submerged weight of objects that may be carried away by a river is proportional to the sixth power of the river flow speed; this formulation is sometimes called Airy's law. Thus, if the speed of flow is doubled, the flow would dislodge objects with 64 times as much submerged weight. In mountainous torrential zones this can be seen as erosion channels through hard rocks and the creation of sands and gravels from the destruction of larger rocks.
A river valley, created from a U-shaped glaciated valley, can easily be identified by the V-shaped channel that it has carved. In the middle reaches where a river flows over flatter land, meanders may form through erosion of the river banks and deposition on the inside of bends. Sometimes the river will cut off a loop, shortening the channel and forming an oxbow lake or billabong. Rivers that carry large amounts of sediment may develop conspicuous deltas at their mouths. Rivers whose mouths are in saline tidal waters may form estuaries. Throughout the course of the river, the total volume of water transported downstream will be a combination of the free water flow together with a substantial volume flowing through sub-surface rocks and gravels that underlie the river and its floodplain. For many rivers in large valleys, this unseen component of flow may exceed the visible flow. Most but not all rivers flow on the surface. Subterranean rivers flow underground in caverns; such rivers are found in regions with limestone geologic formations.
Subglacial streams are the braided rivers that flow at the beds of glaciers and ice sheets, permitting meltwater to be discharged at the front of the glacier. Because of the gradient in pressure due to the overlying weight of the glacier, such streams can flow uphill. An intermittent river only flows and can be dry for several years at a time; these rivers are found in regions with limited or variable rainfall, or can occur because of geologic conditions such as a permeable river bed. Some ephemeral rivers flow during the summer months but not in the winter; such rivers are fed from chalk aquifers which recharge from winter rainfall. In England these rivers are called bournes and give their name to places such as Bournemouth and Eastbourne. In humid regions, the location where flow begins in the smallest tributary streams moves upstream in response to precipitation and downstream in its absence or when active summer vegetation diverts water for evapotrans
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is an artificial 82 km waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean. The canal is a conduit for maritime trade. Canal locks are at each end to lift ships up to Gatun Lake, an artificial lake created to reduce the amount of excavation work required for the canal, 26 m above sea level, lower the ships at the other end; the original locks are 34 m wide. A third, wider lane of locks was constructed between September 2007 and May 2016; the expanded canal began commercial operation on June 26, 2016. The new locks allow transit of larger, post-Panamax ships, capable of handling more cargo. France began work on the canal in 1881, but stopped due to engineering problems and a high worker mortality rate; the United States took over the project in 1904 and opened the canal on August 15, 1914. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects undertaken, the Panama Canal shortcut reduced the time for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, enabling them to avoid the lengthy, hazardous Cape Horn route around the southernmost tip of South America via the Drake Passage or Strait of Magellan.
Colombia and the United States controlled the territory surrounding the canal during construction. The US continued to control the canal and surrounding Panama Canal Zone until the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties provided for handover to Panama. After a period of joint American–Panamanian control, in 1999, the canal was taken over by the Panamanian government, it is now operated by the government-owned Panama Canal Authority. Annual traffic has risen from about 1,000 ships in 1914, when the canal opened, to 14,702 vessels in 2008, for a total of 333.7 million Panama Canal/Universal Measurement System tons. By 2012, more than 815,000 vessels had passed through the canal, it takes 11.38 hours to pass through the Panama Canal. The American Society of Civil Engineers has ranked the Panama Canal one of the seven wonders of the modern world; the earliest mention of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama occurred in 1534, when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, ordered a survey for a route through the Americas that would ease the voyage for ships traveling between Spain and Peru.
Such a route would have given the Spanish a military advantage over the Portuguese. In 1668, the English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne speculated in his encyclopaedic endeavour Pseudodoxia Epidemica - "some Isthmus have been eat through by the Sea, others cut by the spade: And if policy would permit, that of Panama in America were most worthy the attempt: it being but few miles over, would open a shorter cut unto the East Indies and China". In 1788, American Thomas Jefferson Minister to France, suggested that the Spanish should build the canal since it would be a less treacherous route for ships than going around the southern tip of South America, that tropical ocean currents would widen the canal thereafter. During an expedition from 1788 to 1793, Alessandro Malaspina outlined plans for its construction. Given the strategic location of Panama and the potential offered by its narrow isthmus separating two great oceans, other trade links in the area were attempted over the years.
The ill-fated Darien scheme was launched by the Kingdom of Scotland in 1698 to set up an overland trade route. Inhospitable conditions thwarted the effort and it was abandoned in April 1700. Numerous canals were built in other countries in the late early 19th centuries; the success of the Erie Canal in the United States in the 1820s and the collapse of the Spanish Empire in Latin America led to a surge of American interest in building an inter-oceanic canal. Beginning in 1826, US officials began negotiations with Gran Colombia, hoping to gain a concession for the building of a canal. Jealous of their newly obtained independence and fearing that they would be dominated by an American presence, the president Simón Bolívar and New Granada officials declined American offers; the new nation was politically unstable, Panama rebelled several times during the 19th century. Another effort was made in 1843. According to the New York Daily Tribune, August 24, 1843, a contract was entered into by Barings of London and the Republic of New Granada for the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Darien.
They referred to it as the Atlantic and Pacific Canal, it was a wholly British endeavor. It was expected to be completed in five years. At nearly the same time, other ideas were floated, including a canal across Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Nothing came of that plan, either. In 1846, the Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty, negotiated between the US and New Granada, granted the United States transit rights and the right to intervene militarily in the isthmus. In 1848, the discovery of gold in California, on the West Coast of the United States, created great interest in a crossing between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. William H. Aspinwall, the man who won the federal subsidy for the building and operating the Pacific mail steamships at around the same time, benefited from this discovery. Aspinwall's route included steamship legs from New York City to Panama and from Panama to California, with an overland portage through Panama; the route between California and Panama was soon traveled, as it provided one of the fastest links between San Francisco and the East Coast cities, about 40 days' transit in total.
Nearly all the gold, shipped out of California went by the fast Panama route. Several new and larger paddle steamers were soon plying
Shropshire Union Canal
The Shropshire Union Canal is a navigable canal in England. The Llangollen and Montgomery canals are the modern names of branches of the Shropshire Union system and lie in Wales; the canal lies in the counties of Staffordshire and Cheshire in the north-west English Midlands. It links the canal system of the West Midlands, at Wolverhampton, with the River Mersey and Manchester Ship Canal at Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, 66 miles distant; the "SU main line" runs southeast from Ellesmere Port on the River Mersey to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal at Autherley Junction in Wolverhampton. Other links are to the Llangollen Canal, the Middlewich Branch, which itself connects via the Wardle Canal with the Trent and Mersey Canal, the River Dee. With two connections to the Trent and Mersey the SU is part of an important circular and rural holiday route called the Four Counties Ring; the SU main line was the last trunk narrow canal route. It was not completed until 1835 and was the last major civil engineering accomplishment of Thomas Telford.
The name "Shropshire Union" comes from the amalgamation of the various component companies that came together to form the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company. The main line between Nantwich and Autherley Junction was built as a railway although it was decided to construct it as a waterway; the canal starts from Ellesmere Port on the River Mersey traversing the Wirral peninsula to Chester. This stretch, completed in 1797, was part of the unfinished Ellesmere Canal; the industrial waterway was intended to connect the Port of Liverpool on the River Mersey to the River Severn at Shrewsbury via the North East Wales Coalfields. However, only eight years after the completion of the contour canal between Netherpool and Chester, the proposed project became uneconomical; this meant the planned 16-mile mainline from Chester to Trevor Basin near Wrexham was never constructed. Instead the northern Wirral section was joined to the pre-existing Chester Canal. Although the Ellesmere Canal was not completed as intended, the central section of the Ellesmere Canal was built.
These sections now form part of the waterways: Montgomery Canal. Both are branches of the Shropshire Union mainline, although in modern times they are considered to be separate canals. In Chester, from the top of the arm leading down to the Dee, the SU follows the old Chester Canal built in 1772 to connect Chester and Nantwich; the canal passes alongside the city walls of Chester in a vertical red sandstone cutting. After Chester, there are only a few locks as the canal crosses the nearly flat Chester Plain, passes Beeston Castle, the junctions at Barbridge and Hurleston and arrives at Nantwich basin, the original terminus of the Chester Canal; the two junctions on this stretch are important links in the English and Welsh connected network. At Barbridge, the Middlewich Branch of the SU goes northeast to Middlewich on the Trent and Mersey Canal; this was the original planned main line of the Chester Canal, but was in fact built much than the Nantwich stretch. At Hurleston, the old Ellesmere canal from Llangollen and Montgomery made a connection from Frankton Junction eastwards to the old Chester Canal after it was realised that the planned main line from Trevor to Chester along the Dee was never going to be built.
This canal merged with the Chester Canal and became the Llangollen Branch of the Shropshire Union. These waters are now known as the Montgomery Canal; the odd angle between Nantwich basin and the next stretch of the SU shows that the journey southwards is on a newer canal constructed as the narrow Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal to connect Nantwich, at the end of the Chester Canal, to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal at Autherley Junction, near Wolverhampton. An important lost link can be seen at Norbury Junction, where a branch ran south-west through Newport to connect with the Shrewsbury Canal at Wappenshall Junction. After Nantwich basin, a long sweeping embankment incorporating an aqueduct carries the canal across the main A534 Nantwich-Chester road; the canal has to climb out of the Cheshire Plain by means of a flight of 15 locks at Audlem. The canal passes through the eastern suburbs of the town of Market Drayton in Shropshire. Further south there are substantial lengths of embankment through the Staffordshire village of Knighton.
There is an aqueduct south of Norbury Junction and deep cuttings at Loynton near Woodseaves, Grub Street, at Woodseaves. The canal continues as the 1-mile-long Shelmore Embankment. Repeated soil slippage during construction meant that this was the last part of the B&L Junction Canal to be opened to traffic; the lengthy embankment is equipped with flood gates at both ends to prevent loss of water should the canal be breached in this area. During World War II these locks were kept closed at night because of the risk of bomb damage. At Gnosall the canal enters the 81-yard Cowley Tunnel; the tunnel was planned to be 690 yards long, but after the rocky first 81 yards, the ground was unstable, the remaining length was opened out to form the present narrow and steep-sided Cowley Cutting. At Wheaton Aston, the canal climbs its last lock to reach the summit level, fed by the Be
Media related to Towing with horses at Wikimedia Commons