The Grand Western Canal

The Grand Western Canal
Inland Waterways Histories series
by Helen Harris
The Grand Western Canal was a product of the canal mania of the 1790s. It was then seen as a means of bringing South Wales coal to Exeter; as fulfilling the dream of a waterway to connect Bristol to the English Channel; even as part of a through barge line from London to the Exe via the Kennet & Avon.
A section of barge canal, eleven miles long, was indeed built at high cost from Tiverton to the Somerset border; nearly thirty years later another on a smaller scale was added to carry the line forward to Taunton and a junction with the Bridgwater & Taunton Canal. This section is well known for its seven unique vertical lifts built by James Green, the only ones working in the world at the time, and for its inclined plane at Wellisford. The added section was later abandoned, but the older part has now been taken over by the Devon County Council and its future recreation assured.
The Grand Western was the curious result of vision, speculation, over-optimism, inadequate engineering control, and originality. It offers a story unlike any other to the reader, through Devon fields and villages and, on the abandoned stretch, remains of lifts, incline, iron aqueducts and wharves of interest alike to the historian, the industrial archaeologist and the merely curious.
Helen Harris, with Monica Ellis author of The Bude Canal, also in the Inland Waterways Histories series, here presents an extraordinary waterway, in text, pictures, maps and walkers' itinery.
206 pages, 1973, Case bound, 5½" x 8¾"
David & Charles Publications
ISBN-10 0715362542
New-Out of Print
Pre-Owned, excellent, light dust jacket edge wear
SOLD