The Canal & River Trust (CRT) is appealing for people interested in the history of canals to volunteer to map and record the heritage of Yorkshire’s 250-year-old canals, as part of a national survey. The heritage survey will chart how the canal system has changed over the past 30 years, by updating and augmenting a survey of canals completed in the early 1990s by British Waterways and Historic England (then English Heritage).
Over the course of several weeks earlier this year, CRT ran a pilot of the heritage survey on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. Teams of volunteers used an app developed specifically to survey a range of heritage assets situated along the canal between Leeds and Liverpool. This work included looking at locks and lock cottages, bridges, aqueducts, tunnels, wharfs, warehouses, and stables. The project is now being rolled out across the 2,000-mile network of canals that span England and Wales, with the Yorkshire survey the latest area to be studied.
Carrying out the volunteer-led survey of the CRT’s network of canals, and the historic setting around them, is expected to take four years. The project is supported by funds raised by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
More details here: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/news-and-views/news/discover-the-fascinating-heritage-of-yorkshire-and-north-easts-waterways
Industrial Heritage Networks 