The Brilliant Engineering and Beauty of the Llangollen Canal

Please support me on Patreon

The Llangollen canal spans England and Wales and is truly one of the waterway treasure of the UK. Not only beautiful, it boasts some amazing engineering feats of the 1790s. Now a UNESCO World Heritage site, you can navigate this linear industrial history museum and travel back in time yourself!

Music: The Zepplin by Blue Dot Sessions
Licensed under Creative Commons

[jackking]

And that's partially how the railways were born:
The North East of England has huge coal reserves and industry throughout the country needed fuel badly. The North East for some reason never connected with the rest of the countrys canal system and mine engineers needed an answer - to shift coal more quickly..
There are large rivers in the coal mining area but many mines were several mines from them. Get coal to a waiting boat/ship and it can be in London two weeks later.

The early railways back then were made using wooden rails. Those rails were flat with a vertical wooden buffer to prevent wheels falling off. The coal wagons were hauled using horses and sometimes gravity to the rivers edge did the rest.
Wooden rails rot and wear out. Coal wagons could be quite heavy (more coal more money) and horses could only pull so much.
Iron was tried. It worked a treat and although brittle (new ones could be dropped into place) they did go some way to removing the resistive loads that wooden rails had. Mining was growing rapidly though and so was the demand for coal. Mine engineers knew of, and had experience of, water pumping steam engines. Some clever engineers (Stephenson for example) set to trying to mobilise those steam engines. Other engines were stationary and would pull coal wagons along some stretches.
I think we know the rest!

I live in the North East of England. Even now you can still see the signs of where those old early horse drawn wagonways were. Other early steam hauled wagonways are either bridleways or upgraded further to currently used railways.
If you ever visit the UK again I can highly recommend visiting some of the museums located in and around the city of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Your videos are awesome by the way :)

[WelshRabbit]

I passionately love these old canals. I can't think of any more pleasant way to enjoy a boating holiday than gliding through towns, villages and lovely countryside aboard a narrowboat.

[wot_hog]

Thanks to this beautiful video I can now say "been there done that." Truly spectacular. And what a gorgeous dog at 2:20.

[alastairbarkley]

The existence of the canal system (which covers most of England as well as parts of Wales and Scotland) was the reason that Great Britain's Industrial Revolution began well ahead of every other country. Not only did canal company investors receive astonishing returns on their money, the integration of industrial and manufacturing centres was the driver of Britain's prosperity and mid-19th century global superpower status. The engineering of the canals also greatly facilitated the development of the railway and road systems which followed. You usually find all three running closely together now.

I haven't regretted buying a narrowboat for relaxing and interesting retirement leisure; also drinking a great deal of good beer.

Congratulations on the channel. A thoughtful alternative to 'shop' videos.

[powerwagon]

England is very beautiful, I can only imagine the glory if a beautiful summer day! Maybe I can visit one day.

[alexmontgomery]

Such beautiful scenery. I love Britain, my home for two years in the early ’70s.

[mctavishmcardle]

absolutely gorgeous - top-notch time lapses, too

i was lucky enough to have time to take a walk down the chesapeake & ohio canal when i was in DC years ago, and while it wasn't quite so narrow, it too was very beautiful. old canals (with towpaths!) are really quite something - just the lock systems on their own are amazing

[MrPinknumber]

Love how the walking old ladies go faster than the boat XD

[bruceb]

Superb engineering and SHOW !! Thank you !

[grantmillard]

We enjoyed a narrow boat rental trip along those canals a number of years ago. It’s easy to relax at 3 mph. Even if you are manning the tiller in the rain with a hot cup of Typhoo provided by the first mate from the tiny galley belowdecks. It was a wonderful time.

[wankle]

This is beautiful, your channel is making me want to go visit a few of these places.

[Nirawen]

Great video. I biked along a large section of this canal with my grandad when I was a kid, loved learning about the engineering.

[kevinbyrne]

Beautiful landscapes. No wonder the Brits are so proud of their country.
Thank you for sharing this with us.

[sittingstill]

_Cruising the Cut_ comes to mind viewing this. What a fun video!

Edit: A video on the narrowboat elevator in the UK would be really amazing. There’s so much interesting history and engineering you could explore in that piece.

[jamesmorgan]

Brings back memories :) One of many beautiful places to visit!

[Fourby]

A lot of boat owners will go down into the cabin and let the boat bump it's way over the aqueduct... I'm loving your channel... did you know that this canal is very unique as it has a slight current, water flows into the canal from the river Dee Horseshoe as a water feeder to Chester. Something you may also find interesting is the Lapal Canal tunnel in Birmingham, perhaps the worlds first ever 'Flume' it used water a head powered by steam to flush boats though. You should also look at the Anderton LIft, The Foxton Inclined Plane the Falkirk wheel and the Bingley 5 rise all gems of canal engineering.. and dont forget the Crofton Beam Engines for the Boulton and Watt...

[MostlyPennyCat]

We love the Rochdale canals, you climb _over_ the Pennines in a boat, then go _through_ them in a 3 kilometer tunnel

[NBCRGraphicDesign]

Thanks for the wonderful set of videos! I hope you can soon become the "Connections" of the 21st century. Keep up the great work.

[raymondj]

that was sooo cool n beautiful !!! thanks .

[paddlefaster]

Absolutely beautiful. I'm going to have to throw that on the bucket list. The elevated Canal looks like the sidewall was varied narrow (thin) compared to the rest of the structure.