The waterways

London to Birmingham by water — the trunk route of the canal age, with arms reaching Leicester, Aylesbury, Northampton and Paddington.

220 km · spans 9 counties

The longest single canal in Britain, crossing the Pennines by Bingley's Five Rise Locks and the moors above Burnley.

204 km · spans 5 counties

Brindley's Grand Trunk of 1777 — Potteries bottle kilns, the Anderton Boat Lift and the long darkness of Harecastle Tunnel.

150 km · Staffordshire, Cheshire & Derbyshire

The broad-beam crossing of southern England — river, canal and river again from Bristol's Avon to the Thames at Reading, over the chalk by the Caen Hill flight.

140 km · spans 5 counties

A contour-hugging early canal wandering from Coventry's doorstep through empty Midlands countryside to the Thames at Oxford.

125 km · spans 4 counties

Telford's dead-straight last great canal, running embankment-and-cutting from the Black Country to the Mersey at Ellesmere Port.

107 km · Cheshire, Staffordshire & Shropshire

Telford's Great Glen waterway from Fort William to Inverness — a third canal, two-thirds loch, climbing Neptune's Staircase beneath Ben Nevis.

97 km · Highland

Brindley's last canal, from the Trent at West Stockwith through Retford toward Chesterfield — restored in stretches either side of the collapsed Norwood Tunnel.

74 km · Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire & South Yorkshire

Brindley's cross-country link of 1772 from the Trent & Mersey to the Severn, ending at the purpose-built port of Stourport.

74 km · Staffordshire, Worcestershire & West Midlands

The lock-free coastal canal of the north-west, 41 miles on one level from Preston to Tewitfield with the sea often in view.

66 km · Lancashire & Cumbria

The most-cruised canal in Britain, crossing the Dee valley 38 metres up on Telford's Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.

66 km · spans 4 counties

The Duke's canal of 1761 that began the Canal Age, crossing the Mersey flats between Manchester, Runcorn and Leigh.

63 km · Greater Manchester & Cheshire

A coal-carrying artery of the eighteenth century, from Coventry Basin to the Trent & Mersey at Fradley Junction.

61 km · Warwickshire, Staffordshire & West Midlands

The Victorian seaway that made inland Manchester a port, taking ocean-going ships 36 miles up from the Mersey estuary.

58 km · Cheshire, Greater Manchester & Merseyside

The mountain canal of the Bannau Brycheiniog, contouring high above the Usk from Brecon toward Pontypool.

58 km · Powys, Monmouthshire & Torfaen

Scotland's coast-to-coast canal of 1790, reopened in 2001 and turned by the Falkirk Wheel and the Kelpies into modern landmarks.

57 km · spans 5 counties

The quiet canal of the Welsh borders — partly restored, rich in wildlife, running from Frankton Junction toward Newtown.

56 km · Powys & Shropshire

A heathland canal through Surrey and Hampshire's military country, restored over four decades and rich in dragonflies.

51 km · Hampshire & Surrey

The first canal across the Pennines — 91 broad locks between Manchester and Sowerby Bridge, reopened whole in 2002.

51 km · Greater Manchester & West Yorkshire

The lock-free contour canal from Falkirk into the heart of Edinburgh, linked to the Forth & Clyde by the Falkirk Wheel.

51 km · West Lothian, Edinburgh & Falkirk

Down from Birmingham to the Severn at Worcester by fifty-eight locks, thirty of them in the great Tardebigge flight.

48 km · Worcestershire & West Midlands

A defence line dug against Napoleon along the landward edge of Romney Marsh, from Seabrook to Cliff End.

45 km · Kent & East Sussex

A high-level canal along the Peak District's western edge, carried on Telford-school embankments past silk-town wharves.

42 km · Cheshire, Greater Manchester & Staffordshire

Through the old Forest of Arden to Shakespeare's town, saved by volunteers in the 1960s restoration that changed canal history.

41 km · Warwickshire & West Midlands

A lock-free rural canal through the Leicestershire coalfield that never quite reached Ashby, passing Bosworth battlefield.

35 km · Leicestershire & Warwickshire

The highest and boldest Pennine crossing, tunnelling more than three miles under the moors at Standedge.

31 km · Greater Manchester & West Yorkshire

From the Potteries into the wooded Churnet valley, one of the most rural endings of any English canal.

29 km · Staffordshire

The 'Curly Wyrley' — a contour canal looping around the northern Black Country from Wolverhampton toward Brownhills.

27 km · West Midlands & Staffordshire

A ship canal beside the Severn estuary — the widest and deepest in the world when it opened in 1827.

26 km · Gloucestershire

Out of central Birmingham down the Farmer's Bridge and Aston flights, carrying the network's traffic toward the Trent valley.

24 km · West Midlands, Warwickshire & Staffordshire

Climbing out of Manchester's fringe to Whaley Bridge and Bugsworth Basin, once the transhipment point for Peak limestone.

24 km · Greater Manchester, Derbyshire & Cheshire

Somerset's surviving canal, crossing the Levels between its two towns past a chain of Second World War pillboxes.

23 km · Somerset

A Derbyshire coalfield canal of 1779, climbing the Erewash valley from the Trent to Langley Mill.

19 km · Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire

Britain's oldest working canal, dug by the Romans around AD 120 to join the Trent to the Witham at Lincoln.

18 km · Lincolnshire

A lock-free Devon canal kept as a country park, running through red-earth farmland from Tiverton to the Somerset border.

18 km · Devon & Somerset

A little-known Yorkshire canal through the Lower Derwent's meadows, most of it a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

15 km · East Riding of Yorkshire & North Yorkshire

Nine miles across the Kintyre peninsula's neck — 'Britain's most beautiful shortcut' between Loch Fyne and the Sound of Jura.

14 km · Argyll and Bute

London's canal — from Little Venice round Regent's Park and through Camden Town to the Thames at Limehouse.

14 km · London

The salt town's barge and junction canals, derelict for eighty years and reopened as a ring in 2011.

12 km · Worcestershire

East Manchester's canal, lifting boats out of the city through eighteen locks toward the Pennine crossings.

11 km · Greater Manchester

A short Yorkshire link of 1778 carrying the Aire & Calder's traffic to the tidal Ouse at Selby.

10 km · North Yorkshire

The spine of the Birmingham Canal Navigations — Brindley's winding old main line and Telford's ruler-straight new one, side by side.

West Midlands

The first canal of modern Britain, cut in the 1560s to bring ships past the weirs to Exeter's quay.

Devon

The non-tidal Thames — 45 locks of managed river between Cricklade's meadows and the tideway at Teddington.

217 km · spans 7 counties

The powerhouse river of the Midlands, navigable from Shardlow through Nottingham and Newark to the tidal reaches at Gainsborough.

153 km · Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire & Derbyshire

Guillotine-gated locks and water meadows from Northampton to Peterborough, where the Nene slips out into the Fens.

146 km · Northamptonshire & Cambridgeshire

Britain's canoeing river, running lock-free down its wooded border gorge from Hay past Ross and Symonds Yat to the tide at Bigsweir.

133 km · spans 4 counties

York's river, tidal below Naburn, carrying the Vale of York's waters past the city walls toward the Humber.

98 km · North Yorkshire

Shakespeare's Avon, restored to navigation by volunteers — from Stratford through Evesham's orchard country to the Severn at Tewkesbury.

76 km · Worcestershire, Warwickshire & Gloucestershire

Britain's longest river in its working stretch — locks and lave-net weirs from Stourport down to Gloucester.

69 km · Worcestershire & Gloucestershire

Straightened fenland river from Lincoln's Brayford Pool to the Wash port of Boston, under the Stump's great tower.

59 km · Lincolnshire

Yorkshire's commercial waterway since 1704, canalising the Aire from Leeds and Wakefield down to the docks at Goole.

55 km · West Yorkshire, East Riding of Yorkshire & North Yorkshire

The Lea made navigable — from Hertford through the Lee Valley's reservoirs and marshes to Bow Locks on the edge of the Thames.

44 km · London, Hertfordshire & Essex

Leicestershire's river navigation, winding from the Trent through Loughborough to Leicester's West Bridge.

39 km · Leicestershire & Nottinghamshire

River-and-cut navigation up the Calder valley from Wakefield to Sowerby Bridge, gateway to the Pennine canals.

35 km · West Yorkshire

Cheshire's salt river, canalised for the chemical trade and joined to the canal network by the Anderton Boat Lift.

32 km · Cheshire

Kent's river navigation, locking down the wooded Medway valley from Tonbridge to the tidal limit at Allington.

31 km · Kent

North Lincolnshire's arrow-straight drainage navigation, from Bishopbridge through Brigg to the Humber at South Ferriby.

27 km · Lincolnshire

Essex's own navigation of 1797, dropping through quiet farmland from Chelmsford to the tidal estuary at Heybridge Basin.

22.1 km · Essex

A small, winding navigation through the Essex–Hertfordshire border country from Bishop's Stortford to the Lee.

22 km · Hertfordshire & Essex

A dyke-like little river of the southern Broads, from Loddon's staithe down to the Yare at Hardley Cross.

5.5 km · Norfolk

The Brandon river — a Breckland stream turned fen navigation, joining the Great Ouse at Brandon Creek.

Norfolk, Suffolk & Cambridgeshire

The narrowest of the Broads rivers, threading Barton Broad and the windpumps of How Hill.

Norfolk

The main river of the northern Broads, from Coltishall past Wroxham and Horning to Breydon Water at Great Yarmouth.

Norfolk

The Backs, the boathouses and the fen reaches below — Cambridge's river, navigable down to its meeting with the Great Ouse.

Cambridgeshire

The Welland's quiet little sister, navigable through the south Lincolnshire fens from Tongue End to Surfleet.

Lincolnshire

The great slow river of the Fens, navigable from Bedford through Ely's cathedral skyline to Denver Sluice.

Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire & Norfolk

A chalk-fed fen tributary of the Great Ouse, navigable through Prickwillow's black fields to Jude's Ferry.

Cambridgeshire & Suffolk

Constable's river — one of England's first navigations, through Dedham Vale from Sudbury to the estuary at Cattawade.

Essex & Suffolk

Short, reed-fringed and windmill-lined — the Broads river of Potter Heigham and Thurne Mouth.

Norfolk

The Suffolk border river of the Broads, navigable from Geldeston Lock through Beccles and Oulton Dyke.

Suffolk

A fenland river winding through Spalding's bulb country between the Deepings and the outfall toward the Wash.

Lincolnshire & Cambridgeshire

Surrey's seventeenth-century navigation, in the National Trust's care, from the Thames at Weybridge up to Godalming.

Surrey

The smallest and prettiest of the Great Ouse's navigable tributaries, wandering through fen and breck to Whittington.

Norfolk

The southern Broads' highway, carrying Norwich's navigation seaward across the wide water of Breydon.

Norfolk

The Don valley's waterway — river, cut and canal linking Sheffield's basin to the Trent at Keadby.

South Yorkshire & Lincolnshire

Cumbria's great river, running north from the Mallerstang fells through red sandstone country and Carlisle to the Solway.

145 km · Cumbria

A slow Yorkshire river curving off the North York Moors round the Vale of Pickering to the Ouse.

116 km · North Yorkshire & East Riding of Yorkshire

A river from Llyn Tegid in Eryri through the Vale of Llangollen and Chester to a wide estuary on the Irish Sea.

113 km · spans 5 counties

A Northumberland river running from the Cheviots down a green valley past Rothbury and Warkworth to the sea at Amble.

89 km · Northumberland

A Berkshire chalk river from the Marlborough Downs to the Thames at Reading, shadowed most of the way by the Kennet & Avon Canal.

72 km · Berkshire & Wiltshire

A border river running out of the Radnorshire hills through Herefordshire to join the Wye below Hereford.

72 km · Herefordshire & Powys

Norfolk's chalk river, looping past watermills and grazing marsh through Fakenham and Norwich to meet the Yare.

71 km · Norfolk

The classic Hampshire chalk stream, braided through water meadows from the downs near Overton to the Solent at Totton.

64 km · Hampshire

A Dorset chalk river running through water meadows past Dorchester and Wareham to Poole Harbour.

50 km · Dorset

A Cornish river from Bodmin Moor to the Atlantic at Padstow, followed most of the way by the Camel Trail.

48 km · Cornwall

A Hampshire chalk stream running clear and cold past Winchester to Southampton Water, and one of the most famous trout rivers in England.

45 km · Hampshire

A slow clay river of the Kentish Weald, reckoned among the best lowland clay rivers left in England.

40 km · Kent

A lowland clay river winding through Warwickshire and Solihull, unusual for never having been straightened.

40 km · West Midlands & Warwickshire

A small west Norfolk chalk stream running to the Great Ouse at King's Lynn, among the least altered rivers of its kind.

39 km · Norfolk

An Exmoor river dropping from the open moor through steep oak woods to Dulverton, crossed at Tarr Steps by an old clapper bridge.

37 km · Somerset

A quiet river running down a broad Devon and Dorset valley to the sea at Seaton, with a wide estuary behind the shingle.

35 km · Devon, Dorset & Somerset

The headwaters of the Hull in the Yorkshire Wolds are the most northerly chalk streams in the world.

32 km · East Riding of Yorkshire

A short, fast Cumbrian river falling from the Kentmere fells through Staveley and Kendal to Morecambe Bay.

32 km · Cumbria

A small Midlands river on the Leicestershire border, protected along its whole length for its fish and its white-clawed crayfish.

32 km · Leicestershire, Staffordshire & Derbyshire

The outflow of Ennerdale Water, holding the largest population of freshwater pearl mussels in England.

31 km · Cumbria

A short, exceptionally clean chalk stream running down from racehorse country on the Lambourn Downs to the Kennet at Newbury.

27 km · Berkshire

Two steep Exmoor rivers meeting at Lynmouth, running through wooded gorges that made the town's disastrous flood of 1952.

18 km · Devon & Somerset

A winterbourne crossing Salisbury Plain, dry at its head through most summers and running hard after winter rain.

14 km · Wiltshire