The canals of the United Kingdom are a major part of the network of inland waterways in the United Kingdom. They have a colourful history, from use for irrigation and transport, through becoming the focus of the Industrial Revolution, to today's role for recreational boating. Despite a period of abandonment, today the canal system in the United Kingdom is again in increasing use, with abandoned and derelict canals being reopened, and the construction of some new routes. Most canals in the United Kingdom are maintained by the Canal & River Trust, previously British Waterways, but a minority of canals are privately owned.
The majority of canals in the United Kingdom can accommodate boats with a length of between 55 and 80 feet and are now used primarily for leisure. There are a number of canals which are far larger than this including New Junction Canal and the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal which can allow use for boats with a length of up to 230 feet. One purpose built ship canal exists in the United Kingdom, the Manchester Ship Canal, which is incomparable in size to any other canal in the United Kingdom. Upon opening in 1894 it was largest ship canal in the world, and permitted ships with a length of up to 600 feet to navigate its 36 mile route.
Read more about Canals Of The United Kingdom: History of Commercial Carrying, Growth of Leisure Use, Present Status, Canal Boats, Canal Museums, Canal Engineers
Famous quotes containing the words canals, united and/or kingdom:
“The Nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky;
The walls, the woods, and long canals reply.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder—in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“I suddenly realized that the devout Russian people no longer needed priests to pray them into heaven. On earth they were building a kingdom more bright than any heaven had to offer, and for which it was a glory to die.”
—John Reed (1887–1920)