Portal:UK Waterways

• Wikipedia portals:
• Culture
• Geography
• Health
• History
• Mathematics
• Natural sciences
• People
• Philosophy
• Religion
• Society
• Technology

edit  

UK Waterways

The United Kingdom is home to a vast network of waterways. These are navigable bodies of water in various forms such as canals, rivers and lakes.

Natural rivers and lakes were the first waterways to be used for the transportation of people and goods. These were then improved to make navigation more reliable, by the construction of artificial channels and flash locks. The introduction of the pound lock enabled more ambitious waterways to be built. The Industrial Revolution required the transport of large quantities of raw materials and finished goods, and this led to a period of 'canal mania' which saw the construction of a large network of canals in the United Kingdom.

Competition, first from railways and later from road transport, started the decline of many canal and river navigations, leading in some cases to their abandonment. The latter half of the twentieth century saw the development of recreational boating and the restoration of many disused waterways.

Show most recent selections
(If you are a frequent visitor to this page, this will force the page to be completely rendered without using what is in your cache)

edit  

Selected article

Portal:UK Waterways/Selected article/November 2011

Archive – Suggest future articles

edit  

Selected picture

Portal:UK Waterways/Selected picture/November 2011

Archive – Suggest future pictures

edit  

Lists

• Aqueducts
• Canal Junctions
• Canal Locks
• Navigation Authorities
• Waterway Societies

edit  

Related portals

• United Kingdom
• Transport
• UK Railways
• Nautical

edit  

Related WikiProjects

• UK Waterways
• UK geography
• Rivers

edit  

Things to do

• Join WikiProject UK Waterways
• Help select future pictures and articles.
• Add items to Did You Know?
• Add the portal link to the top of the See Also section of all relevant pages. This can be done by adding {{Portal|UK Waterways}} immediately under the section header.

edit  

Did you know?

• …that the River Thames is navigable from the Thames estuary to as far inland as the town of Lechlade in Gloucestershire?

• …that the Westport Canal is now used as a drain for the Somerset levels?

• …that the middle section of the Coventry Canal was officially part of the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal, until both were nationalised in 1948?

• …that the Barton Swing Aqueduct carries the Bridgewater Canal across the Manchester Ship Canal, the swinging action allowing large vessels using the Ship Canal to pass underneath and smaller narrowboats to cross over the top?

Full list of DYK sections

edit  

In the news

Add a news Item

Archive...

edit  

Topics

• Canals of the United Kingdom
• History of the British canal system
• Narrowboat

edit  

Categories

[−] Canals in the United Kingdom

[+] Canals in England

[×] Canals in Northern Ireland

[+] Canals in Scotland

[+] Canals in Wales

[+] Aqueducts in the United Kingdom

[×] Canal museums in the United Kingdom

[×] Canal rings in the United Kingdom

[+] Canal tunnels in the United Kingdom

[+] Locks of the United Kingdom

[+] Navigable aqueducts in the United Kingdom

[+] Waterways organisations in the United Kingdom

[×] United Kingdom canal stubs

[−] River navigations in the United Kingdom

[+] Bristol Harbourside

[+] Lee Navigation

[×] River Usk

What are portals? · List of portals · Featured portals

Purge server cache