Britain’s Canals

Anthony Burton & Derek Pratt

Adlard Coles

£18.99

This beautifully photographed book takes a thematic approach to the different elements of the British canal system: locks, aqueducts, water supply, cargos and connections. The authors clearly have a passion for the ‘quiet dignity and good proportion’ of Georgian architecture and expert eyes for detail – for instance  the grooves in metal bridge guards worn by decades of friction from tow ropes. They emphasise the human effort involved in feats such as the Laggan cutting on the Caledonian Canal and inspirational engineering. I hadn’t known that the characteristic mitred angle of lock gates was conceived by Leonardo da Vinci. Each chapter ends with a brief list of places to visit but I was very disappointed by the failure to include any maps.