Page:Rivers, Canals, Railways of Great Britain.djvu/362



In the former act it was directed, that after the payment of £8 per centum to the proprietors for money advanced, the surplus of the rates should be funded, and when this fund amounted to £1,000, the rates should be reduced; but in the present that clause is repealed.

There is a considerable basin at Horncastle, and the work was opened in the year 1802. The length of the canal is eleven miles, at no great elevation above low water mark, and the direction it pursues is nearly north-east. The advantages it affords, by the easy conveyance of agricultural produce, and the importation of coals, timber, and other goods through the River Trent, are of great consequence to a portion of the county of Lincoln, and to Horncastle and its neighbourhood in particular.

HUDDERSFIELD CANAL.
34 George III. Cap. 53, Royal Assent 4th April, 1794.

40 George III. Cap. 39, Royal Assent 30th May, 1800.

46 George III. Cap. 12, Royal Assent 31st March, 1806.

BEFORE we enter on a description of this bold, stupendous and useful undertaking, it may be neccessary to premise that, in the year 1774, Sir John Ramsden, Bart. obtained an act for making and maintaining a navigable canal from the River Calder, at a certain point between a bridge called Coopers Bridge and the River Colne, to the King's Mill, near the town of Huddersfield, in the West Riding of the county of York, Sir John was then a minor; but the measure met with the approbation of his trustees, inasmuch as it tended greatly to the convenience of the town of Huddersfield, whereof Sir John is nearly the sole proprietor. This canal was executed in due course; and, in the year 1792, an act of parliament passed for making and maintaining a canal from Manchester to or near Ashton-under-Lyne and Oldham; and, in the year 1793, the work of this canal was in a great state of forwardness. It was then discovered, that if a communication could be formed between Sir John Ramsden's Canal and the Ashton, it would be the most direct line of conveyance between the east and west seas, provided a short cut was made extending the Ashton Canal at Manchester to the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal, which