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:
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am forced to fret over insufficient details related to large
Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
Of being, with or without my help, if any were forthcoming.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)