My mate Lenny at Canal and River Trust has been put in charge of a small local canal (Nottingham to Beeston). He has asked me to write a brief history of the canal since it was started in 1792
Interesting stories, interesting events, interesting locations, what it was used for and so on.
Particularly fond of this: In 1812 some muppet was storing many many barrels of gunpowder in a warehouse. Another muppet noticed one of these barrels was leaking. He wondered what would hapen if he dropped some hot ashes onto the gunpowder.
The resulting bang blew him 120 feet and destroyed three buildings and their contents and could be heard 15 miles away