Waterways and Canal-building in Medieval England

Abstract

Since the early 1990s there has been lively debate about water transport in medieval England. Now there is a major collection of essays which highlights the improvements to waterways and construction of canals. A colloquium in 1999 brought together scholars who, like the editor John Blair, had been pondering the nature of the ancient watercourses encountered in their studies. This book consists of their papers together with a few others. It is divided into two distinct parts. The first considers the relationship between waterways and the economy, the second describes the canals and improved waterways. Excellent maps make the detailed local descriptions comprehensible. Part I reveals an extensive system of water transport. Edmonds shows the links between the north-west and Ireland in the early middle ages. Navigation patterns of this date are traced in various ways, including the distribution of coins and pottery and charter and place-name evidence. Cole points to the ea-tuns, meaning ‘river settlement', many of which are on the upper Thames and Severn, concluding that they had a specialist function connected with the river; she ingeniously speculates that they were places charged with keeping navigations open. Place-names are also central to Hooke's account of the uses of waterways, which stresses that navigation had to compete with mills and fisheries.