The indusTrial revoluTion^83woodland. This is particularly true of the earlier industrial areas, such as
Coalbrookdale, which always remained semi-rural in character, and well
supplied with coppiced woods which had provided their main fuel before
coal came into general use. Benthall Edge Wood, which forms the backdrop
to the often-photographed views of the Iron Bridge itself, and which rises to
a height of over 500 metres, is a Site of Special Scientific Interest dominated
by birch, oak and rowan in its upper sections, and by wych elm and ash lower
down. It is crammed with former mineshafts, quarries, and the remains of
kilns, inclined planes and former tramways. Nearby Ladywood, beside the
road leading from Ironbridge to Broseley, covers an extensive area of former
clay, coal and stone extraction, with numerous pits, spoil heaps, shafts and
ponds: some of the latter contain, besides a range of newts and frogs, the
rare beetle Haliplus heydenii.^43
new habitats: Canals and railways
As already emphasized, the construction of a network of artificial waterways
- canals or ‘navigations’ – was a key feature of the industrial revolution.
In 1750 there were around 1,000 miles of navigable waterway in England.
By 1850 this had increased to some 4,250 miles (Figure 17).^44 The new
network provided a vast area of essentially static water, equivalent to a
lake covering something in the region of 50 square kilometres. It might
be thought that a canal, regularly disturbed by traffic, would be of little
importance to wildlife but narrow boats were drawn by horses and moved
at a speed of 3 or 4 MPH, causing much less disturbance than modern
motorized boats. The canals thus provided a greatly increased space for
aquatic wildlife, and their value in this respect was to some extent enhanced
by the way in which they were constructed and maintained. The layers of
puddled clay necessary to retain water on permeable soils provided ideal
conditions for the establishment of waterweeds and marginal vegetation.^45
But bottom-growing weeds needed to be regularly cut so that they did not
impede the passage of boats, while locks needed to be dredged at intervals to
prevent silting. These operations served to prevent the commoner and faster-
growing weeds from out-competing less vigorous species and ensured that,
along the length of a canal, there were always stretches in different stages of
succession. Pondweeds, for example, tended to flourish best in the first few
years after clearing and dredging.^46
The importance of canals for wildlife is perhaps most dramatically
illustrated by the case of the Basingstoke canal, which originally ran for
nearly 60 kilometres through the Hampshire countryside. It fell derelict in
the early part of the twentieth century but has now been partially restored.
Today it is considered by many to be ‘Britain’s best site for aquatic plants,
dragonflies and bats’.^47 It was already being noted for its rare plants as early
as the 1830s, when still only four decades old; and by the end of the century