Description
THIS TITLE IS NOT YET PUBLISHED AND WILL BE AVAILABLE AUGUST 2025 – ANY ORDERS PLACED WILL BE CHARGED WHEN ORDERED & DISPATCHED WHEN IN STOCK
A comprehensive and richly illustrated history of the once vitally important but long-forgotten barge traffic on the River Wye from Roman times to its demise towards the end of the nineteenth century.
As well as a detailed account of the barges themselves – the goods they carried, and the people who owned and worked on them – the book outlines the navigation and towpaths of the river, the wharves and loading places, some of the accidents which occurred and acts of piracy committed on the waterway. A final chapter tells the story of pleasure boating on the river beginning with the river trips organised by the Reverend John Egerton. While possibly a ruse to get his wife’s visitors out of his rectory, it gave rise to the world-wide concept of excursions and the beginning of the tourist industry.
Known more recently as a river suffering environmental destruction – with only canoes now travelling its length – the River Wye was once a thriving trading route for the rural economy. This book brings this fascinating period of the river’s long and eventful history to life.
Tim Ward (d.2022) was a well-known author of local and social history, and a collector of Herefordshire photographs, engravings, postcards and ephemera. Richard Skeet is a former Chairman of the Herefordshire and Gloucester Canal Trust, and author of Rescued from Obscurity, which tells the story of the original canal and its revival which began in 1983, 100 years after its closure.
Paperback | 288 pages | 242 x 171 mm |
119 colour illus
ISBN 9781910839775
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