This is the story of canals used for transport and the men who built them from the earliest times, up to the end of the ninteenth century. This is a very long history: stones for the pyramids of Egypt were brought to the site by canal and one of the most imposing canal systems ever built, the Grand Canal of China, was begun in the sixth century BC. Development after the end of the Roman Empire was slow, but saw the steady improvement of river navigations...

In the aftermath of World War One, two children and their dogs set out to find lost family in France, by crossing the Channel in the barge that is their home.

This revised edition is the definitive history of Britain's canals and the men who made them. Anthony Burton is the acknowledged expert on British canals and has appeared on and presented many TV programmes on the subject.

For more than half a century, a shared love of canals and narrowboats has been inseparable from the marriage of Timothy West and Prunella Scales. The two iconic actors have spent many of the happiest days of their life together enjoying the calming pleasures of watching land and nature unfold before them at four miles an hour. In 2014, Tim and Pru took to the canals of Britain and beyond with a television crew and a brief to record their best-loved...

The best canal walks aren't just about walking - they're no-fuss adventures, steeped in the wonders of the waterways. This book features 20 handpicked walks which offer routes through some of Britain's most beautiful landscapes.

Prolific canal author Nick Corble's guide is both the perfect introduction to canals for new enthusiasts and a useful companion for devotees. It looks at broad and narrow, the canal network, types of boats and barges, decorations, things you should know when buying a boat, basic navigation and the surrounding flora and fauna.

For centuries, living afloat on Britain's waterways has been a rich part of the fabric of our social history, from the fisher-folk of ancient Britain to the bohemian houseboat dwellers of the 1950s and beyond. Yet remarkably a complete history of the houseboat has never been written. In this fascinating chronicle, Julian Dutton - who was born and grew up on a houseboat - traces the evolution of boat-dwelling from an industrial phenomenon in the heyday...

This title follows the ebbs and flows of Sarah Henshaw's journey as she sought to make her vision of a floating bookshop, The Book Barge, a reality. Business wasn't always easy, so one May morning she set off for six months chugging the length and breadth of the country. Books were bartered for food, accommodation, bathroom facilities and cake. During the journey, the barge suffered a flooded engine, went out to sea, got banned from Bristol and, on...

On a boat, the canals belong to you. You can spend weeks - even months - pottering through some of the most hauntingly beautiful countryside, your only company the wildlife around you or the fishermen you'd inevitably pass wherever you went. Delving into familiar waters which always present surprises along the way, Steve Haywood recounts his own personal narrowboat experiences with a humour and wit that bring to life the things we love best about...

Leaving her garden to the mercy of the slugs, award-winning writer Alys Fowler set out in an inflatable kayak to explore Birmingham's canal network, full of little-used waterways where huge pike skulk and kingfishers dart. Her book is about noticing the wild everywhere and what it means to see beauty where you least expect it. What happens when someone who has learned to observe her external world in such detail decides to examine her internal world...