All the Navigable Waterways that we've added so far can be viewed by using our Waterway Selectors (below). Canals are listed first, then rivers. Alternatively, the panel below the selector, lists all waterways and waterway routes.
There are more waterways to add and many more features yet to come.
To View Waterway Maps, Select a Waterway Below
SHOW MAP  |
Listed alphabetically, by Canals then Rivers.
Canal Routes are combinations of waterways in a circuit.
One of the biggest and time consuming jobs is adding 'Polylines' to waterway maps. These are lines that follow the course of the waterway and zoom in and out with the map.
As the map is zoomed in, other details will show. Locks, Tunnels, Aqueducts, Winding Holes etc. Labels for most of these will show with greater zooming in.
Lock Gates
Tunnel AqueductBack in the Canal Golden Age, this figure was well over double this at something like 5000 miles.
Almost every big town and city had at least one canal. Cities like London, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool had several. Many joined rivers that had been made navigable with locks and cuts. They were the arterial routes for transporting fuel, manufactured goods, food, raw materials and other goods to the tune of an impressive 30 million tonnes every year.
By the end of the 1800's, canals alone made up almost 3000 miles of the navigable network which stretched from from Mid-Wales to the Wash, London to above Lancaster. There was even a small network in Scotland topped with the Caledonian Canal cutting across from Inverness to Fort William.
Restoration work continues today and almost every year there are more of our canals brought back to life. Sadly, there are many that are beyond restoration because of roads and buildings constructed over where they used to be.
