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Derby Canal
The Derby Canal ran from the Trent and Mersey Canal at Swarkestone to Derby and Little Eaton, and to the Erewash Canal at Sandiacre, in Derbyshire, England. The canal was authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1793 and was fully completed in 1796. It featured a level crossing of the River Derwent in the centre of Derby. An early tramroad, known as the Little Eaton Gangway, linked Little Eaton to coal mines at Denby. The canal's main cargo was coal, and it was relatively successful until the arrival of the railways in 1840. It gradually declined, with the gangway closing in 1908 and the Little Eaton Branch in 1935. Early attempts at restoration were thwarted by the closure of the whole canal in 1964. Since 1994, there has been an active campaign for restoration spearheaded by the Derby and Sandiacre Canal Trust and Society. Loss of the Derwent crossing due to development has resulted in an innovative engineering solution called the Derby Arm being proposed, as a way of transferri ...
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Trent And Mersey Canal
The Trent and Mersey Canal is a canal in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire in north-central England. It is a "narrow canal" for the vast majority of its length, but at the extremities to the east of Burton upon Trent and north of Middlewich, it is a wide canal. The narrow locks and bridges are big enough for a single narrowboat wide by long, while the wide locks can accommodate boats wide, or two narrowboats next to each other. History The Trent and Mersey Canal (T&M) was built to link the River Trent at Derwent Mouth in Derbyshire to the River Mersey, and thereby provide an inland route between the major ports of Hull and Liverpool. The Mersey connection is made via the Bridgewater Canal, which it joins at Preston Brook in Cheshire. Although mileposts measure the distance to Preston Brook and Shardlow, Derwent Mouth is about beyond Shardlow. The plan of a canal connection from the Mersey to the Trent ("The Grand Trunk") came from canal engineer James Brindley ...
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Shardlow
Shardlow is a village in Derbyshire, England about southeast of Derby and southwest of Nottingham. Part of the civil parish of Shardlow and Great Wilne, and the district of South Derbyshire, it is also very close to the border with Leicestershire, defined by the route of the River Trent which passes close to the south. Just across the Trent is the Castle Donington parish of North West Leicestershire. An important late 18th-century river port for the trans-shipment of goods to and from the River Trent to the Trent and Mersey Canal, during its heyday from the 1770s to the 1840s it became referred to as "Rural Rotterdam" and "Little Liverpool". Today Shardlow is considered Britain's most complete surviving example of a canal village, with over 50 Grade II listed buildings and many surviving public houses within the designated Shardlow Wharf Conservation Area. History Due to its location on the River Trent, which up to this point is easily navigable, there is much early evidence o ...
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Mill Race
A mill race, millrace or millrun, mill lade (Scotland) or mill leat (Southwest England) is the current of water that turns a water wheel, or the channel ( sluice) conducting water to or from a water wheel. Compared with the broad waters of a mill pond, the narrow current is swift and powerful. The race leading to the water wheel on a wide stream or mill pond is called the head race (or headraceDictionary.com, word definition), and the race leading away from the wheel is called the tail raceChamber's Twentieth Century Dictionary, 1968, p=674 (or tailrace). A mill race has many geographically specific names, such as ''leat, lade, flume, goit, penstock''. These words all have more precise definitions and meanings will differ elsewhere. The original undershot waterwheel, described by Vitruvius, was a 'run of the river wheel' placed so a fast flowing stream would press against and turn the bottom of a bucketed wheel. In the first meaning of the term, the millrace was the stream; in t ...
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Weir
A weir or low head dam is a barrier across the width of a river that alters the flow characteristics of water and usually results in a change in the height of the river level. Weirs are also used to control the flow of water for outlets of lakes, ponds, and reservoirs. There are many weir designs, but commonly water flows freely over the top of the weir crest before cascading down to a lower level. Etymology There is no single definition as to what constitutes a weir and one English dictionary simply defines a weir as a small dam, likely originating from Middle English ''were'', Old English ''wer'', derivative of root of ''werian,'' meaning "to defend, dam". Function Commonly, weirs are used to prevent flooding, measure water discharge, and help render rivers more navigable by boat. In some locations, the terms dam and weir are synonymous, but normally there is a clear distinction made between the structures. Usually, a dam is designed specifically to impound water behind ...
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Lock (water Transport)
A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber in which the water level can be varied; whereas in a caisson lock, a boat lift, or on a canal inclined plane, it is the chamber itself (usually then called a caisson) that rises and falls. Locks are used to make a river more easily navigable, or to allow a canal to cross land that is not level. Later canals used more and larger locks to allow a more direct route to be taken. Pound lock A ''pound lock'' is most commonly used on canals and rivers today. A pound lock has a chamber with gates at both ends that control the level of water in the pound. In contrast, an earlier design with a single gate was known as a flash lock. Pound locks were first used in China during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD), having been pioneered by the Song politician and naval en ...
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Wagonway
Wagonways (also spelt Waggonways), also known as horse-drawn railways and horse-drawn railroad consisted of the horses, equipment and tracks used for hauling wagons, which preceded Steam locomotive, steam-powered rail transport, railways. The terms plateway, tramway (industrial), tramway, dramway, were used. The advantage of wagonways was that far bigger loads could be transported with the same power. Ancient systems The earliest evidence is of the 6 to 8.5 km long ''Diolkos'' paved trackway, which transported boats across the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece from around 600 BC. Wheeled vehicles pulled by men and animals ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element, preventing the wagons from leaving the intended route. The Diolkos was in use for over 650 years, until at least the 1st century AD. Paved trackways were later built in Roman Egypt. Wooden rails Such an operation was illustrated in Germany in 1556 by Georgius Agricola (image right) in his ...
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William Jessop
William Jessop (23 January 1745 – 18 November 1814) was an English civil engineer, best known for his work on canals, harbours and early railways in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Early life Jessop was born in Devonport, Devon, the son of Josias Jessop, a foreman shipwright in the Naval Dockyard. Josias Jessop was responsible for the repair and maintenance of Rudyerd's Tower, a wooden lighthouse on the Eddystone Rocks, Eddystone Rock. He carried out this task for twenty years until 1755, when the lighthouse burnt down. John Smeaton, a leading civil engineer, drew up plans for a new stone lighthouse and Josias became responsible for the overseeing the building work. The two men became close friends, and when Josias died in 1761, two years after the completion of the lighthouse, William Jessop was taken on as a pupil by Smeaton (who also acted as Jessop's guardian), working on various canal schemes in Yorkshire.Rolt, L.T.C., "Great Engineers", 1962, G. Bell and Sons Ltd ...
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Navigable Aqueduct
Navigable aqueducts (sometimes called water bridges) are bridge structures that carry navigable waterway canals over other rivers, valleys, railways or roads. They are primarily distinguished by their size, carrying a larger cross-section of water than most water-supply aqueducts. Roman aqueducts were used to transport water and were created in Ancient Rome. The long steel Briare aqueduct carrying the Canal latéral à la Loire over the River Loire was built in 1896. It was ranked as the longest navigable aqueduct in the world for more than a century, until the Magdeburg Water Bridge in Germany took the title in the early 21st century. Early aqueducts such as the three on the Canal du Midi had stone or brick arches, the longest span being on the Cesse Aqueduct, built in 1690. But, the weight of the construction to support the trough with the clay or other lining to make it waterproof made these structures clumsy. In 1796 Longdon-on-Tern Aqueduct, the first large cast iron aqu ...
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Canal
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow under atmospheric pressure, and can be thought of as artificial rivers. In most cases, a canal has a series of dams and locks that create reservoirs of low speed current flow. These reservoirs are referred to as ''slack water levels'', often just called ''levels''. A canal can be called a ''navigation canal'' when it parallels a natural river and shares part of the latter's discharges and drainage basin, and leverages its resources by building dams and locks to increase and lengthen its stretches of slack water levels while staying in its valley. A canal can cut across a drainage divide atop a ridge, generally requiring an external water source above the highest elevation. The best-known example of such a canal is the Panama Canal. Many ...
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Benjamin Outram
Benjamin Outram (1 April 1764 – 22 May 1805) was an English civil engineer, surveyor and industrialist. He was a pioneer in the building of canals and tramways. Life Born at Alfreton in Derbyshire, he began his career assisting his father Joseph Outram, who described himself as an "agriculturalist", but was also a land agent, an enclosure commissioner arbitrating in the many disputes which arose from the enclosures acts, an advisor on land management, a surveyor for new mines and served as a turnpike trustee. In 1792 his neighbour George Morewood died and left his estates to Ellen Morewood. She was mining under Outram land. Over the next nine years the Outrams engaged in a legal battle with her. Land had been sold to them by the Morewoods but Ellen believed that she still had the rights to the coal and ironstone beneath them. James and Benjamin Outram disagreed and they appealed and in 1803 the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Lord Ellenborough agreed with them. ...
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Uttoxeter
Uttoxeter ( , ) is a market town in the East Staffordshire district in the county of Staffordshire, England. It is near to the Derbyshire county border. It is situated from Burton upon Trent, from Stafford, from Stoke-on-Trent, from Derby and north-east of Rugeley. The population was 13,089 at the 2011 Census. The town's literary connections include Samuel Johnson and Mary Howitt. History Uttoxeter's name has been spelt at least 79 ways since it appeared in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Wotocheshede": it probably came from Anglo-Saxon ''Wuttuceshǣddre'', meaning "Wuttuc's homestead on the heath". Some historians have pointed to pre-Roman settlement here; axes from the Bronze Age discovered in the town are now on display in the Potteries Museum in Stoke-on-Trent. It is possible that Uttoxeter was the location of some form of Roman activity, due to its strategic position on the River Dove and its closeness to the large garrison forts at Rocester between 69 and 40 ...
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Sudbury, Derbyshire
Sudbury is a village and civil parish in Derbyshire, England, located about south of Ashbourne. It is part of the Derbyshire Dales district. The population as recorded at the 2001 Census was 976, increasing to 1,010 at the 2011 Census. The £0.5m A50 bypass opened in 1972. The parish includes the hamlets of Aston, Aston Heath, Dalebrook and Oaks Green. Sudbury Hall and HM Prison Sudbury are located here. History Sudbury was mentioned in the Domesday book as belonging to Henry de Ferrers and was worth twenty shillings.''Domesday Book: A Complete Translation''. London: Penguin, 2003. p.746 Sudbury previously had its own railway station that is now closed. Famous residents * Edward Harcourt, Archbishop of York, was born here * William Harcourt founder of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was born here in 1789.Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition * George John Warren Vernon, M.P. and Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probabl ...
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