History
The canal obtained its Act of Parliament in 1763 (although the canal had been planned as far back as 1756) and construction started in 1767. The canal opened in 1770. The canal cost £28,000 to build and was able to carry seagoing boats.
For much of its life the canal was leased by the Chaplin family who were able to run it at something of a profit with estimated tolls getting as high as £5000 a year in the late 1820s.
The coming of the railways lead to a decline in the use of the canal and the First World War killed what traffic was left. The final blow was the devastation caused by the Louth Flood of 1920 to the Riverhead area, the terminus of the canal. The canal closed in 1924.
Read more about this topic: Louth Navigation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“America is, therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s history shall reveal itself. It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of Old Europe.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)