Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
company also tried exporting cheese. Something they have successfully exported is Measham
ware, Church Gresley's highly prized decorated brown canal earthenware.
The furnace at Moira - the main reason for the canal being built to this point
.
The canal was bought out in 1846 by the London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) railway. In
1856 there were experiments with the steam-powered barges
Pioneer
and
Volunteer
. Traffic
peaked at 153,000t in 1870. In 1918 there was extensive mining subsidence in the Measham
area and by the 1940s much of the canal around Donisthorpe was on embankment or low
bridges. The LMS offered to give the canal to the Coventry Canal Company but they de-
clined. In 1944 the canal was shortened to Donisthorpe, abandoned north of Measham in
1957 and shortened again to its present terminus north of Snarestone in 1963. The last regular
coal carriage from the North Leicestershire Coalfield took place in 1970 by the Ashby Canal
Association, which was founded by an angling club and managed commercial carrying as far
as Brentford in order to fund it. The closures not only avoided the cost of repairs but also
allowed further extraction of coal from beneath the line of the canal.
There are plans to reopen the canal to Measham, the Ashby Canal Association owning the
canal bed as far as Gilwiskan Aqueduct. Around Moira Furnace in Donisthorpe Country Park
2km has been restored. Full restoration is intended.
Farmland is rarely more than gently undulating and views are frequently extensive, hedges
often being absent beside the canal. Views are better from the water before the reedmace
grows too much in the summer. Bridges across the canal are mostly arches of stone or blue
engineering brick, sometimes clearly distressed by mining settlement.
