| Throughout the length and breadth of England, no major navigation is so lost in obscurity as the Hereford & Gloucester Canal. Unlike its famous neighbour, the Thames & Severn, with which comparisons may be drawn, all links with living memory have inevitably broken and apart from a brief account here and there, its story has never been told. Small wonder then, that these 34 miles of inland waterway are a thing forgotten. Promoted on a doubtful footing during the Canal Mania of the 1790s, the Hereford & Gloucester Canal has an absorbing history and industrial archaeology, and it is hoped these pages will provide a useful introduction to a subject which I have studied on and off for 30 years. In particular, reference is made at some length to the part played by Stephen Ballard, a local man by whose drive and ability the canal was at last completed, and whose diaries have provided a vivid insight into days before the railways came. For one who numbered among his friends and acquaintances George and Robert Stephenson, Thomas Brassey, Joseph Locke, and I.K. Brunel, Ballard's name, like the canal he built, has lapsed into undeserved oblivion. The biographical notes included here are an attempt to restore his position among the foremost contractors and engineers of the day. No story of the canal would be complete without reference to the Gloucester-Ledbury railway, which after 1885 assumed to a considerable extent its role and route, and a chapter on this era is included. Of the canal itself, many remnants survive to surprise those who care to leave the beaten track - bridges, aqueducts, tunnels, and silent ribbons of water which we can scarcely believe no barge has parted for a hundred years. In this new enlarged edition we record the achievements, so far, of the Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Trust in its endeavours to link two cities by water again, after a gap of well over a century. Contents:
Foreword
- Introduction
- Before the Canal
- Building to Ledbury
- A Renaissance
- Stephen Ballard`s Canal
- A Falling Star
- Under Railway Control
- The Daily Round
- The Herefordshire and Gloucestershire Canal Trust
- Along the Towpath
- Stephen Ballard 1804-1890
- The Gloucester-Ledbury Railway by John Norris
- Locks on the Hereford & Gloucester Canal
- Industrial Archaeology
- Acknowledgements and Sources
- Index
`Continent: Europe
Country: UK |
