The Rolt Memorial Lecture 2017: Conserving the Waterways Heritage

ABSTRACT

This article describes the work of the Canal & River Trust in managing and conserving the heritage assets and the wider historic environment of the Trust's waterways in England and Wales. Various types of heritage assets are described, and the ways in which these assets are managed, including via archaeological recording, along with conservation-led repairs to historic engineering structures and other historic waterway-related buildings, are considered. New directions that offer effective and efficient ways of dealing with heritage assets are examined.

KEYWORDS:

• heritage assets
• heritage management
• conservation
• waterways
• archaeology
• L.T.C. Rolt
• Canal & River Trust

Acknowledgements

This paper is the culmination of the author's 30 years service for British Waterways and the Canal & River Trust. Thanks are due to the Trust's team of heritage advisers and to the Waterways Archive. Phil Emery is acknowledged for reading through an earlier draft of this paper.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

Nigel Crowe began his career in heritage in the 1980s, working in the listing branch of English Heritage. Between 1988 and 2018 he was the architectural heritage officer for the British Waterways Board and then head of heritage for British Waterways and the Canal & River Trust, where he led a team of regional heritage advisers in England and Wales. He has over 30 years’ experience of working in the conservation, management and interpretation of historic buildings and archaeological sites. Nigel has written widely on heritage matters and is a member of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation's editorial board. He is the author of the English Heritage Book of Canals (1995).

Notes

1 Rolt, L.T.C., Narrow Boat (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1944); the Inland Waterways Association (IWA), is the leading membership charity dedicated to protecting and restoring Britain's network of canal and river waterways.

2 De Mare, E., The Canals of England (The Architectural Press, 1950), 11.

3 The Canal & River Trust was launched in 2012 and is the waterways and wellbeing charity that looks after 3,200km of inland waterways in England and Wales.

4 The Canal & River Trust Articles of Association.

5 Falconer, K., Canal and River Navigations National Overview: an Appraisal of the Heritage and Archaeology of England's Present and Former Inland Navigable Waterways, Historic England Research Report Series no. 28 (2017).

6 Rolt, L.T.C., Thomas Telford (Pelican, 1979).

7 The Canal & River Trust, Heritage Report 2016/17. The Canal & River Trust and preceding British Waterways Heritage Reports are available on the Trust's website www.canalrivertrust.org.uk/.

8 Further information about the Transport Trust Red Wheels scheme is available at: www.transporttrust.com/red-wheels.

9 Rolt, L.T.C., Navigable Waterways (Longman, 1969), xi.

10 Interim Report on Archaeological Work at North Basin, Chester R3017 (unpublished report, British Waterways, 2003).

11 A plan of the basin drawn in the 1950s or 1960s shows ten named boats buried in North Basin, Chester (Canal & River Trust, Waterways Archive).

12 The Canal & River Trust, Heritage Report 2016/17.

13 ibid.

14 Enterprise & Regulatory Reform Act, 2013, Pt 5, s 60.

15 Rolt, L.T.C., ref. 9, 163.