This talk will be an A-Z of the early history of the canal and will cover some of its most attractive features, the challenges faced in its construction, and insight into some of the key people involved in its earliest days.
Based on Julian’s new book – the first book dedicated solely to the canal since Ian Langford’s seminal Towpath Guide to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal published in 1974 – the talk will be illustrated with a wide range of photographs, maps, documents and other source material including the day-to-day records of the canal’s construction, the landowners whose land the canal passed through, and a surviving plan of the canal produced in 1772. Myths will be challenged and exploded, and hitherto unknown aspects of the canal’s route and structures revealed.
