Thringstone - The Charnwood Forest Canal (Thringstone To Nanpantan)

The Charnwood Forest Canal (Thringstone To Nanpantan)

Small coal workings existed in the area from medieval times, but until the 20th century, the coalfield was hampered in its competition with the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire fields even for the Leicester market owing to poor transport facilities. Toward the end of the 18th century Joseph Boultbee, the tenant of collieries at Thringstone, and others fought to change this and were successful in getting opened the Charnwood Forest Canal between Thringstone and Nanpantan in 1794.

Horse-drawn tramroads were built to transport coal mined at Swannington and Coleorton to the canal wharf at Thringstone Bridge, and once at the Nanpantan terminus the coal was re-loaded on to a further stretch of tramroad to take it to the main navigation at Loughborough. These railroads are said to have been the first in the world to use the standard gauge, and a deep cutting left by one of its branches can still be found in the field at the back of the Glebe Road housing estate in Thringstone.

The cost of three transhipments of coal between trucks and barges meant that the Leicestershire pits were still unable to compete with their Derbyshire rivals and in February 1799 the canal's feeder reservoir at Blackbrook burst its banks following exceptionally severe frosts, causing much damage to the canal and surrounding countryside.

That proved to be the last straw for the Leicestershire coal-owners and the getting of coal hereabouts was to remain a modest concern until the arrival of the Leicester and Swannington Railway some thirty years later.

The expansion of the local coal-mining industry from around 1830 onward had a big impact on population. The population of Thringstone in 1801 was 901. This had grown to 1,298 by 1851, of which some 52% were non-native to the village, having migrated here from other areas. The coal-mining era came to an end in North West Leicestershire during the 1980s.