if i had to pick something which epitomized the industrial revolution
in the uk it would be without doubt the coming of the canal you see it enabled
raw materials to get to factories quicker than they ever had done before and of course it
allowed those factories to get their goods to market quicker than they ever had done before
for that reason canal networks grew up around commercial trade routes and in doing that slashed
a price of product it was famously said that the price of coal along the bridgewater canal halved
because of this significant increased capacity canals really did make the industrial revolution
possible my name is paul and today you join me walking alongside the kennet and avon
but we're not telling you the story of the kennet and even despite the fact it was one
of the many canals which grew up in canal mania the late 1700s and the early 1800s
what is very relevant today's video however is this the crofton beam engines and they were used
to supply water via a feeder to the top pond of the kennet and avon canal because the this canal,
like so many canals across the country had a big problem and that was maintaining the water levels
so move forward a hundred years it's 1942 mid world war ii and jf pownall
comes up with a revolutionary idea of building a canal
during the years proceeding world war ii panel became fascinated by a paper from
john saner the paper was titled on waterways in great Britain and it was written back in 1905.
essentially at the turn of the 20th century john saner sought to document the entire
waterway network of Britain and in great detail born with the aim of understanding
how it could improve and also hoping to regenerate interest in Britain's waterways
railways were resolute that they had reduced the cost of moving freight
to its bare minimum so the question that this paper raised was could the cost of transport
be reduced by improving the waterways saner clearly achieved one of the aims
of his task back in 1905 because he received at least one prestigious award
many of the waterways around great britain contributed to this great detail and report
so a few decades later pownall took great inspiration from this document
and really had this great idea of putting the lackluster canal and waterway network
back on the map but the question still remained a canal in 1942
pownell pointed out that the canal builders of their time were not fortunate enough to possess
one of these not just an ordinary map of course but a map with contours on so powder pointed out
that there appeared to be a natural spine down the entire length of the country a spine that he would
refer to as the natural canal line this could be found at the 300 foot or the 91 metre contour
panel does seem to note though that many of the canal builders of their time did indeed
use this contour for some significant stretches the coventry the oxford the ashby the ellsmere
and many others all use at least double figure mileage within 20 foot of this contour
perhaps not only were the lack of contours a problem but perhaps also the lack of broader
thinking so when these canals were built very much like the railways they were all done so
with a more localized way of thinking it was all done with companies trying to get from
a to b within their areas so perhaps pownall's vision was more of a hs2 vision the first time
it was really considered to ever sort of join up the whole of the network
panel goes into some great detail about why this contour exists so widely
with details of erosion to coals and different geological strata and subsequent erosion rates
but above all his desire is to highlight that this contour could be used for one canal
won the single canal at one single level connecting major cities from london to southampton
bristol birmingham manchester liverpool leads in newcastle all at the same level with no locks
the canal panel is putting forward is to be 100 foot wide and 17 feet deep a headroom clearance
of 25 feet he envisaged it carrying traffic of a nature comparable to a shipping canal and having
trains of goods moving up and down the country in some cases using a slipped method like a
railway coach so the train wouldn't need to stop vessels of up to 1500 ton displacement could use
the waterway and therefore coastal vessels of this size could freely use it up and down the country
it's really interesting too to think if the canal brewers at that time realised that there was such
a contour that existed and the fact that they were actually using it but then you think a bit further
on and you probably recall some of the cities i've mentioned southampton newcastle london bristol are
all pretty much at sea level or just above so how exactly would a contour canal work because
this contour canal was 300 feet above sea level now this was an issue that powell did consider
this is the anderton boat lift it was opened in 1875 and it provided
over a century's industrial use connecting the trent and mersey canal with a river weaver
it was a balance lift designed and built by edward clark with two castles one slightly more water in
than the other and hey presto up and down you go it's a mighty structure known as the cathedral
of canals taking over two years to build in its own right in fact it was maintained by john saner
yet the same one that we mentioned previously who saw its conversion in 1908 to electricity
so consider Anderton's lift at 50 foot or thereabouts and consider that panel would need
eight of those around the country but of course not at 50 foot he'd need them up to 300 foot
so here we are we've made it as far as the very muddy devises and the beautiful cane hill locks
which scale themselves westwards down on the Kennet and Avon we're just thinking exactly how
much thought really did pownall give these lifts you see maybe that was the stumbling block of that
era specifically in his document only mentions the lifts and their actual specifics just once
and it reads the main terminal lifts should be 250 feet long by 35 feet wide or 14 feet deep the
lifts which would connect with existing canals that themselves act as branches to the new line
would be much smaller so indeed he did want to use some of these canals that still exist as branches
for that main new line it seems pretty clear from that last statement that panel did indeed
intend to use all these other canals around the country as branches not least to minimize the
impact of the sea level lifts but also to perhaps engage the rest of the canal network
map of his now dubbed grand contour canal had in total five sea level lifts at
hartlepool newcastle chester bristol and preston and three 100-foot lifts
hereford north west hampshire and nottinghamshire and 150 foot lift at leeds
it transpires that these branches were absolutely essential to pownall's plan
you see he already established that you could take 72 foot barges on these that could carry 25 tonnes
and he envisaged them coming off of the existing canal branches joining up on his new grand contour
canal like a train he didn't want the barges that were on the grand contour canal to stop
you literally put your barge in connect up to an already moving set of barges and he envisioned him
being up to free abreast without any difficulty whatsoever on his hundred foot contour canal
had one more thing up his sleeve something had been considered
again and again even as far forward as 2013.
you see once you've got a water system or a waterway in place like this
powder recognized that you could do so much more with it not just transport freight and people
you see he realized that you could put cables for gases and liquids and maybe electricity
right underneath the canal bed to act as a network and of course
more importantly than any of that the distribution of water itself
so you might be thinking it's 1942 world war ii is in full swing there will be a clear lack of money
around and plus the fact that this is quite a mad concept to get your head around the cost the lifts
the whole thing is completely bonkers right move forward to 2011 and the talk of a shipping canal
is back on the cards yes 2011. although this time the talk is focused around pownall's second notion
which was that of water supply you see 2011 2010 saw a considerable lack of rainfall and there was
questions even from the the mayor boris johnson of london at the time and he suggested that it's
absurd that the north should have all of the water when the south should have nothing some consultant
engineers at aecom produced a very extensive report again advocating this shipping canal
schemes like this aren't unheard of around the world i think there's one in china which has a
300 foot lift 300 feet long the three gorges down i believe there's one
in Belgium slightly smaller but it still does prove that it could happen
in this country i really can't see it happening in my lifetime
so the reason we wanted to finish this video here in devises and in particular
on the cane hill locks is because well
had the grand contour canal done what it said it was going to do and join up with all the existing
canals and make this joined up thinking for the first time in canal history well it would have met
the kennet and Avon here at cane hill locks it was said to have gone underneath the cane hill locks
and somehow join perhaps on the bottom end we don't know exactly because there was no written
or scripted plan but imagine the engineering works that would take today let alone back in 1942 you