Canal Boat — February 2018

canalboat.co.uk Canal Boat February 2018 41

HISTORY

The Thames, the Lee, the Grand Union and the Regent’s weren’t the capital’s only waterways.

A team from the London Canal Museum has been tracking down the rest of the city’s canals...

BY MARTIN LUDGATE

T

he Thames through London is
internationally famous; London’s
‘other’ waterways, the Regents
Canal, the River Lee and the Grand Union
Paddington Arm will be well-known to
many Canal Boat readers and are
increasingly familiar to the general public
thanks to the likes of Camden Lock Market;
even East London’s Bow Back Rivers are
emerging from obscurity following the 2012

Olympics. But how many have heard of the

capital’s other waterways? The Kensington

Canal, the Fleet Canal, the Royal Arsenal

Canal – and there were numerous others,

several of which you’d struggle to find any

remains of today.

In a temporary exhibition running until

the spring, the London Canal Museum has

sought to throw some light on these

little-known lost waterways. The museum’s

team has scoured London’s libraries, local

museums and private collections, tracking

down over 60 drawings, maps and other

images from more than 30 sources, and

researching the stories – why did these

canals fail? Did they outlive their

usefulness, or were they in some cases

“frankly a complete waste of time” as one

of the Museum team puts it? Each one tells

a different story, and here is a selection...

London’s Lost Links

A remnant of the Croydon Canal in Anerley, south London