The Trent & Mersey Canal

The Trent & Mersey Canal
The Canals of the British Isles
by Jean Lindsay
The Trent & Mersey was the first English canal to be conceived as a trunk route, part of a national canal network. It was authorised in 19766, after a fierce promotion campaign organised chiefly by Josiah Wedgwood. It was to have run from the Trent at its junction with Derwent to the Mersey at Runcorn; but in the event it joined the Duke of Bridgwater's Canal at Preston Brook. The chief engineer was James Brindley, but this unlettered genius died in 1772 with his work still unfinished. As completed in 1977, the canal was 93 miles long and had 75 locks and a 2,880 yard tunnel through Harecastle Hill. Brindley's tunnel was abandoned, but the secon Harecastle tunnel, which was built by Thomas Telford and completed in 1827, is still in use. The canal survives today as one of the most poular of Britain's cruising waterways.
Dr Lindsay's book gives a detailed account of waterway that made a major contribution to the Industrial Revolution, especially in the Potteries. The text is accompanied by maps of the canal, and by illustrations which range from historic prints to modern aerial photographs. The Trent & Mersey Canal will be of interest to historians, to holidaymakers and to lovers of the Midlands.
182 pages, 1979, Case bound, 5¾" x 8¾"
David & Charles Publications
ISBN-10 0715377817
New-Out of Print
Pre-Owned, excellent, light shelf wear and faint spine discolouration
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