The nation's transport system then depended entirely on the horse. However, used as a pack animal they could only carry around 100 kilos. Pulling a wagon on a good surface, a heavy horse could manage about 1 tonne. The latter was academic because most of the roads were little more than tracks and for much of the year they were impassable to heavy loads.

Some entrepreneurs of that time realised that land transport was not the answer. Even if sufficient horses could be bred, the demand for animal feed would be greater than the supply available. They found that if the load was put in a boat, up to 30 tonnes could be pulled by a small horse or mule, or even a pair of donkeys. A heavy horse could manage up to 100 tonnes!

Civil engineering was in its infancy. The early canals were dug by hand using large gangs of labourers who became known as navigators (later shortened to navvies).

As a result, the early canals such as the Trent and Mersey, Staffs and Worcester, and Oxford canals were dug to follow the contours of the land and so keep the amount of soil to be moved to the minimum.

As engineering skills improved, later canals, such as the Shropshire Union, gained the benefit of more direct routes using cuttings and embankments. Where tunnels were unavoidable, they took many years to construct.

Water supply conditions meant that the narrow canals were built only large enough to take boats 70 feet (21 metres) long by 7 feet (2.1 metres) wide and they were rarely more than 4 feet (just over 1 metre) deep.

Canal building reached its peak in the 1790's but within 50 years the canals were in decline due to the development of the steam engine which lead to the rapid construction of the railways.

Surprisingly, commercial carrying lingered on into the 20th century, and it took a very long and hard winter in the 1960's to kill off the remaining traffic. By then the canal network had become largely forgotten and was falling into disrepair. Fortunately, its potential for pleasure cruising soon became apparent and the decline was arrested. Today much of the system remains, used purely for leisure. As you relax on your boat, you will be able to reflect on the huge amount of manual effort that went into its construction and be amazed that some of the bridges that were only built to take a horse and cart are now coping with forty ton juggernaut lorries.