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Granny Buttons & the English canals

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Granny Buttons is my 60ft long English narrowboat.  Granny Buttons is also my blog, where I write most days about the English canals and waterways, which I love to bits. This lens describes those English canals and waterways, and the many people worldwide who are also passionate about them. 

Our waterways are ethnically unique. Nowhere else do you see the odd, long boats, the history, the culture, the curious structures, all embedded in over two centuries of English history.  And at the root of it all the Industrial Revolution, for which the British canals, by and large were built - starting two generations before the railways.

There's a remarkable subculture of websites about England's waterways.  Initially it's about boating but eventually I'd like to add the other users of the canals as a leisure amenity: the anglers, the walkers, the cyclists and so forth.

But my prejudice dictates that it's ultimately about navigation, about boating.  That's what the English canals were built for, and that's what ultimately counts.

News and general

Waterscape
British Waterways official information site. Universal, covering all waterways users - boaters, walkers, anglers, cyclists etc. Pro: Depth of information, a very good database on the waterways. Unusual and clever mapping system. Con: Very hard to find the information, and the onsite search doesn't work properly. Too commercial - geared towards supporting businesses selling things instead of users reading the site. Scrappily programmed. Irritating bugs in the otherwise remarkable mapping system. Big gaps - e.g. no results if you search for 'IWA' or 'NABO' or 'RBOA'. No feeds.
Narrowboat World
The most immediate and up-to-date news site for boaters. Pro: Immediate, up to date, thriving. Regular, named columnists. Con: No real archiving of stories and (despite their claim to the contrary) not geared to frequent, repeated visits. No feeds.
Pennine Waterways
Superb reference and news website specific to the northern English waterways. Pro: Up to date, tremendous coverage, excellent 'virtual cruises' on all canals in its range, good histories, intelligent. Has a monthly email newsletter. UPDATE: Now has a basic feed that alerts you to updates on the site. Con: Feed only tells you the headline of what's new. You still have to 'visit' the site in the old-fashioned way, and you have to play 'hunt the feed' - your browser won't tell you there's a feed.
Gloucester Docks & the Sharpness Canal
Authoritative, newsworthy and encyclopaedic reference to this short but important canal. Pro: As heavy-duty in its way as Pennine Waterways, and because it's more local, it covers the area in greater depth. Con: No feeds.
JustCanals.com
Small (but growing, comprehensive and adventurous) general canals site by teenager Sam ('Splash') Lashbrooke. Pro: Active, keen, interesting, full of variety, enterprise and enthusiasm. Is already recruiting contributors on a freelance basis. Includes a forum (see below). Con: No feeds.
Jim Shead's Waterways Information
A phenomenally comprehensive encyclopaedia of the waterways of England and Wales. Pro: All human canal life is here! Jim is an indefatigable cataloguer of the waterways. Con: At times too much life is here. It can be tricky to navigate (ironic, when you consider the metaphor). No feeds.
Canals.com
George Pearson's canal directory is the granny of all canal pages, online since 1995 and with a domain to die for (canals.com). Pro: Still pretty much up to date and pretty authoritative in content (last update April 2006). Con: Design now antiquated - hasn't changed in 10 years. He probably knits or hand-embroiders his pages, and shows no inclination to enhance it or hand it over to anyone else. OK as a last-ditch resource.

Forums and newsgroups

There are some very active forums for canal users, particularly boaters. For Usenet/newsgroups I've use the Google Groups link - you might prefer your own brand of newsreader
uk.rec.waterways
The most active, public discussion forum. Primarily by and for boaters, and many of the most active and best-known 'waterwebbers' use it. But as with all Usenet, quite a high signal:noise ratio. A very good sounding board if you have a problem or question.
Canal World
Bulletin board dedicated to the canals. Very active, and said to have over 1,300 users.
Canal Interactive Forum UK
Smaller, younger BBS for boaters, but featuring one or two familiar blogging names.
JustCanals.com forums
Part of JustCanals.com (see general sites above)

Holiday hire on the English canals

Boat hire and hotelboats

You can rent a canal boat or you can go aboard as a guest of someone else on a hotelboat - your choice.
Jim Shead's holiday/hireboat links
Comprehensive list of hireboats and hotelboats.

Waterways support and pressure groups

Voluntary societies were key to restoring and supporting Britain's waterways in the last fifty years. Here's a (too-short) selection.
IWA (Inland Waterways Association)
The IWA has been at the heart of the UK canals revival for the last 60 years.
Waterways Recovery Group
A voluntary group that restores derelect canals in Britain. They run 'Canal Camp' working holidays every summer.
Waterways societies
The IWA list of affiliated UK waterways societies.
NABO (National Association of Boat Owners
Organisation devoted to those who consider canals should give priority to boaters, rather than cyclists, anglers or walkers.
RBOA: Residential Boat Owners Association
Representing those who live afloat on inland waterways in the UK.

Canal magazines

At time of writing (July 2006) there's not much web presence for the three main magazines about the UK waterways - Waterways World, Canal Boat, and Canals & Rivers. Waterways World is the most 'honest', in that it doesn't even bother to have a holding page.
Waterways World
Waterways World is widely considered the main waterways magazine. But it still doesn't have a website. Make of this link what you will!
Canal Boat & Inland Waterways
The only one showing any sign of being up to date at time of writing (July 2006).
Canals & Rivers Magazine
Canals & Rivers relaunched in early 2006, but the website doesn't seem to have updated itself since relaunch.
Towpath Talk
A newspaper of the waterways, now (unusually) three-weekly. A fairly sophisticated website, and you can download previous issues (not the current one) as PDFs. Launched in 2003 as a freesheet, but now chargeable - currently £1.65/issue.
NarrowBoat
A quarterly magazine on waterways heritage. Published by Waterways World.

Waterways books

Some useful and enjoyable books about UK waterways for beginners.
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Online canal maps

Canalplan
The free online planner, routefinder and canals database from Nick Atty. A remarkable feat of programming. Plan a route, find all the details about it, including eerily accurate cruising times. Perfect for planning a holiday cruise. Perfect for finding everything about a stretch of waterway. Perfect for pretty much everything else.
Waterscape's mapping
Tucked away in Waterscape, largely undiscovered, is a remarkable online mapping system.
Go to www.waterscape.com/map, click on a point of the map to zoom in, and click again on the point you want to zoom in to. Keep doing it until you reach the desired level.

But don't click on the blue line of the canal, or you'll be taken off to a detailed information page about that canal and if you hit the back-button on your browser, you'll be back to the country-wide view and will have to zoom in all over again.

You can drag the page around the screen to bring the required spot to the centre.
Where you put the pointer, if you then press the E key, you'll get the relevant Eastings/Northings for that point, for later reference.

You can't print this off, unfortunately. Still, it's a remarkable feat of programming from one single guy - Richard Fairhurst, formerly the webmaster of Waterscape, now the editor of Waterways World. Development seems to have come to a halt on it; otherwise it's remarkable.
River Canal Rescue
The route planner from River Canal Rescue, the 'AA' service for boats on the waterways. Fairly simple to use, simple to read, quite accurate.

Canal boat blogs

The English canals now have a lively community of canal boat blogs. Here are some of the most active.
Balmaha
NB Balmaha -
The Directors' Cut
Ian & Nikki Potts - NB The Directors' Cut (as opposed to half-cut, presumably)
The Grey Nomad
Grey Nomad
Herbie
Herbie
No Problem
Sue & Vic on 'Retirement with No Problem' - the second-longest running canal blog after Granny Buttons.
Quidditch
Waterways wizardry with Keith and D....
Warrior
Sarah Hales
Jannock
Graham Keens & family.
Khayamanzi
Andy Edwards

by

grannybuttons

I fell in love with the English waterways in the early 1990s.
I bought my first canal boat in 1999 and have been cruising and photographing them... more »

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