276 HIGHWAYS 



onwards, had mainly concentrated their efforts to improve internal 

 communications. Not only inland towTis, but seaports themselves, 

 often owed their early prosperity to their situation at the mouths 

 of rivers. Bristol, or Hull, or Boston, or Lymi, for instance, 

 collected and distributed produce along the course of the Severn 

 and the W3^e, or the Trent and the Idle, or the Ouse, the Welland, 

 and the Witham. Even London derived some of its pre-eminence 

 from the produce which was carried over the Thames and its 

 tributaries. To Liverpool the closing of the port of Chester by 

 the sands which choked the Dee, and the opening up of the interior 

 by making navigable the upper waters of the Mersey (1694), the 

 Irwell and the Weaver (1720), proved the real starting-point of its 

 trade. By means of these water-highways inland towns became 

 seaports. They were the centres for collecting and distributing 

 produce over the interior of the country. Fleets of trows, " bil- 

 landers," floats, lighters, and barges were engaged in the trade. 

 On the Severn, for instance, which was navigable as far as Welsh- 

 pool, 376 vessels were employed in 1756. The famous Stourbridge 

 Fair was suppHed with heavy goods by the Ouse, which enabled 

 boats, each carrying 40 tons of freight, to load and unload at 

 Cambridge. York was accessible to vessels of from 60 to 80 tons, 

 and claimed rights of wi'eckage as a seaport. Exeter and Taunton 

 carried on a home and foreign trade by means of the Exe and 

 the Parret. Coal reached Hereford by the Wye. Coventry com- 

 municated with the sea by means of the Warwickshire Avon. 

 From Bawtry, on the Yorkshire Idle, were distributed the lead of 

 Derbyshire, the edged tools of Sheffield, the iron goods of Hallam- 

 shire, as well as the foreign goods Avhich entered the country at 

 Hull. Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire shipped their barley 

 and malt from Ware on the Lea. Gloucestershire cheesemakers 

 sent their cheese to London dov\'n the Thames from Lechlade. 

 Burslem wares were carried in pot-waggons or on pack-horses to 

 Bridgnorth on the Severn. 



From utilismg the natural waterways of the country it seemed 

 but a short step to supplementing them as arteries of trade by 

 the construction of canals. Pioneers in the early stages of this 

 movement were Sir Richard Weston, who in the reign of Charles I. 

 canahsed the Wey, and Sir William Sandys, of Ombersley in 

 Worcestershire, who in 1661 obtained extensive powers to cut 

 new channels, and build locks on the Wye and the Lugg. More 



