Movie profile

The Canal Map of Britain

A fascinating history of Britain's beloved canal network: the navvies whose brawn created the waterways, and the engineers and architects responsible for some amazing tunnels and aqueducts.

A look at Britain's beloved canal network via a fact-filled cruise along the first superhighways of the Industrial Revolution. In the age before mechanisation, a frenzy of canal-building saw a new army of workers carve out the British landscape, digging out hundreds of miles of waterways using picks, shovels and muscle.