Summary
What better way to explore Britain than on a beautiful waterway? Read about the most amazing canal journey of them all -- and find the best narrowboat holiday for you
AROUND 250 years ago, a group of engineers met in a pub by a canal. They were there to decide the size of the locks on the English canal system; and then they had another round.See the full content of this document
Extract
My Narrow Escape
In the morning, the secretary could not remember what had been decided or, indeed, where he was. So, to be on the safe side financially, he chose the narrowest gauge mentioned in his notes, which was 7ft.
That is how the English narrow lock was born, and the English narrowboat - the cigarette, the pencil, the eel, the strangest craft ever to slither down waterways - and the canals themselves, seething with fish and birds, flowing for thousands of country miles up slopes, down valleys, along mountains, through hills, and across the flats and plains of Britain.Today, 2,500 hire-boats mutter along those canals, taking hundreds of thousands of contented holidaymakers with them each year. But what is the secret of the extraordinary popularity of canal holidays? Why are they so different, so memorable?It is, surel...See the full content of this document
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