Canal 250

When a young English nobleman was thwarted in love, he abandoned the court, retired to his estate near Manchester, and built a canal to serve his coalmines. The Bridgewater Canal was the sensation of the age and led others to follow the example of the enterprising Duke of Bridgewater. Over the next half century Britain was covered by a network of waterways that became the lifeblood of the Industrial Revolution. This is the story of those canals and of the people who made and used them. It tells