Page:Rivers, Canals, Railways of Great Britain.djvu/424



When this Company shall receive what will produce a Nett Income of £5 per Cent. per Annum, then the additional Rates are to be taken off Coals which pass on the Leicestershire and Northamptonshire Union Canal beyond Ayleston Mill. Coals passing through the Oakham Canal are also exempt from the additional Tolls.

The Proprietors of this Navigation are directed to guarantee £2,000 per Annum to the Loughborough Canal Company, on Condition of their taking any Sum not more than One Shilling and Sixpence, nor less than Ten-pence per Ton on Coals passing from Loughborough to the Trent.

The Leicester Canal or Navigation commences, as we have before stated, at the basin of the Loughborough Canal on the north side of that town, at an elevation of 125 feet above the sea; passing the town it proceeds in a south-west direction to near Barlow-upon-Soar, leaving Beaumanor Park on the west, and falling into the Soar at Quorndon. Here the River Soar becomes navigable and continues so to its junction with the Wreak River near Wanley Hall; the united rivers being navigable to Turnwater Meadow. In this meadow the navigation is joined by the Leicester and Melton Mowbray Navigation, of which we shall have to speak below; here also a cut is made across the meadows to avoid the shallows, and passing through the parishes of Syston, Barkley and Thurmanston, and leaving Wanlip Hall and Birstal Hall on the east and Beaumont Lees on the west, it terminates at Leicester in the Soar, thus communicating with the Leicestershire and Northamptonshire Union CanaL

From the basin at the Loughborough end of the line there is a railway two miles and a half long, with 185 feet rise to a basin at Forest Lane, at the east end of the Charnwood Forest Water Level. This level extends to Barrow Hill, a distance of nearly nine miles, having a side cut of a quarter of a mile long to Thringstone Bridge. At the west end of the Great Level there is a railway to the Clouds Hill Lime Works, effecting by these means a communication with the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Canal; here also is a railroad to the Barrow Hill Lime Works; the Thringstone Branch also extends a mile and a half to Coal Orton, and by a diversion of half a mile to Swannington Common Coal Works.

From Loughborough to its junction with the Leicester and Melton Mowbray Navigation, this navigation is level for three miles, and from that point, to its termination in the Leicestershire and Northamptonshire Union Canal, the distance is eleven miles, with a rise of 45 feet.