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Quiz Monkey |
Travel |
Canals |
Maximum width of a narrowboat
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7 feet |
Maximum permitted speed on UK canals |
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4 mph |
Term used for the stretch of water between two locks |
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Pound |
Term used for a widened section of a canal, used for turning boats around
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Winding hole |
Built in the 1930s and named for the king who ruled Belgium from 1909 to 1934; connects the Scheldt river at Antwerp with the Meuse at Liège |
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Albert Canal |
Village near Northwich, Cheshire: gives its name to the lift that transports boats between the Weaver Navigation and the Trent & Mersey Canal, overcoming the 50–foot height difference; built in 1875, closed in 1983 due to corrosion; re–opened in 2002 after restoration |
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Anderton |
English city, has 35 miles of canals – more than Venice (but over a much greater area); Gas Street canal basin; "the hub of [Britain's] canal network" (Wikipedia) |
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Birmingham |
Series of 12 locks on the Macclesfield Canal – the only locks on it |
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Bosley |
Opened in 1761, from Worsley to Manchester: started the boom in canal building in
Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution
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Bridgewater Canal |
Links to the Manchester Ship Canal, the Rochdale Canal, the Trent & Mersey Canal, and the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. (Once connected with the River Mersey, at Runcorn, but has been cut off by a road) | ||
Designer and builder of the Bridgewater Canal |
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James Brindley |
Links the rivers Yonne and Saône, thus connecting the Seine and the Rhine
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Burgundy Canal |
Famous flight of locks – 29 altogether – on the Kennet & Avon Canal, just west of Devizes, Wiltshire |
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Caen Hill Locks |
Fort William to Inverness; links Loch Linnhe to the Moray Firth, via the Great Glen (passing through Lochs Lochy, Oich and Ness, and including the artificially created Loch Dochfour) |
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Caledonian Canal |
Links Toulouse to the Mediterranean; the first canal to have a tunnel built using explosives (15th century) |
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Canal du Midi (Midi or Languedoc Canal) |
Canal locks were invented in |
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China |
Cuts through the isthmus of the same name, to link the Aegean and Ionian seas; just under 4 miles long, separates
the Peloponnesian peninsula from the rest of mainland Greece; completed in 1893, having first been proposed in ancient times
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Corinth Canal |
Manchester Ship Canal meets the Mersey at |
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Eastham Locks |
Links Albany to Buffalo (both cities in New York state); links New York to the Great Lakes, via the Hudson River |
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Erie Canal |
The world's first rotating boat lift – opened in 2002, joins the Forth and Clyde Canal and the Union Canal to reconnect Glasgow and Edinburgh |
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Falkirk Wheel |
The oldest canal in Britain – built by the Romans around 120 AD and still in use – links the Trent at Torksey, Lincolnshire to the Witham at Lincoln |
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Foss Dyke or Fossdyke |
Name shared by the world's longest canal, and one of its oldest (China: Beijing to Hangzhou –
1,115 miles / 1,794 km), the major canal in Venice (crossed by the Rialto bridge), and the canal that links Dublin to the River Shannon
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Grand Canal |
Runs from the Thames at Brentford (West London) to Bordesley Junction (Birmingham)
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Grand Union Canal |
Runs from Newbury to Bath, joining two rivers |
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Kennet and Avon |
Opened in 1895, and widened between 1907 and 1914 to allow the passage of a Dreadnought–sized battleship: links the Baltic to the North Sea; runs through the Schleswig–Holstein state (Land) of Germany |
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Kiel Canal |
Runs through the centre of Wigan, meaning that if Wigan Pier ever existed it was on the
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Leeds and Liverpool Canal |
French engineer and diplomat: directed the construction of the Suez Canal (1859–69); also made an unsuccessful attempt to build a canal through Panama, in the 1880s |
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Ferdinand de Lesseps |
Name coined in the 1980s for parts of the historic Ellesmere Canal and its navigable feeder – both of which became part of the Shropshire Union Canals in 1846 |
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Llangollen Canal |
Carried over the River Dee by the Pontcyssyllte aqueduct | ||
Runs from Marple, near Stockport in Greater Manchester, to join the Trent and Mersey Canal at Kidsgrove, near Stoke–on–Trent (Staffordshire) |
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Macclesfield Canal |
Trinidad Turn, Orchid Turn, Balboa Reach, Miraflores Locks, Pedro Miguel Locks, Gatun Locks, Gaillard Cut (formerly known as the Culebra Cut) |
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Panama Canal |
Runs from Dukinfield Junction in Tameside, Greater Manchester, to Bugsworth Basin at Buxworth, Derbyshire, with a branch to nearby Whaley Bridge |
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Peak Forest Canal |
The oldest continuously operated canal system in North America – opened in 1832 as a precaution in case of war with the United States, and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site; connects Ottawa to Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River; name is a French word for a screen or curtain, after the waterfall where the river of the same name empties into the Ottawa river at the same place as the canal |
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Rideau Canal |
Runs for 28 miles between Seabrook near Folkestone and Cliff End near Hastings, following the old cliff line bordering Romney Marsh; constructed as a defence against the possible invasion of England during the Napoleonic Wars |
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Royal Military Canal |
Provides sea access to the Great Lakes |
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St. Lawrence Seaway |
Canal linking St. Helens to the River Mersey: built four years before the Bridgewater and can thus claim to be the first canal in modern Britain |
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Sankey Brook Navigation (a.k.a. Sankey Canal) |
Links the canal system of the West Midlands, at Wolverhampton, with the River Mersey and Manchester Ship Canal at Ellesmere Port, Cheshire – 66 miles (106 km) away |
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Shropshire Union |
Britain's longest, deepest and highest canal tunnel – 5,500 yards long – on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, between Diggle (near Oldham) and Marsden (near Huddersfield); closed in 1943, re–opened in 2001; also the name of three railway tunnels, only one of which is still in use |
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Standedge tunnel |
The Great and Little Bitter Lakes form part of the |
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Suez Canal |
Builder of the Caledonian Canal, and of what's now known as the Llangollen Canal (including the spectacular
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct over the River Dee)![]() |
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Thomas Telford |
Links lakes Erie and Ontario, bypassing Niagara Falls |
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Welland Canal |
© Haydn Thompson 2017–24