After the tortuous windings of the southern Oxford, the northern part comes as a contrast - a result of an 1830s shortening exercise whose traces are still visible to today’s leisure boaters
One end is in rural Derbyshire, the other in the heart of Manchester, but both canals form a vital link in the Cheshire Ring - and some attractive cruising too
With the Cheshire Plain on one side and the Peak District hills on the other, the Macclesfield provides glorious views, splendid old mills, and a rhyme about a bear...
Two short but interesting river navigations connect the Thames and Regents Canal via London’s Olympic venues to the attractive countryside of North Essex and Hertfordshire
The coal traffic which sustained Yorkshire’s busiest freight waterway for three centuries may have vanished, but the Aire & Calder is still impressive to cruise - and may yet have a cargo-carrying future
