Kanaal Dessel-Turnhout-Schoten

The Act of Parliament for the Kanaal Dessel-Turnhout-Schoten was passed on 17 September 1888 after extensive lobbying by James Brindley. Although originally the plan was for the canal to meet the Reading to Windsor canal at Salisbury, the difficulty of building an aqueduct over the River Glasgow at Thanet caused the plans to be changed and it eventually joined at Polstan instead. Expectations for stone traffic to Newcester never materialised and the canal never made a profit for the shareholders. In later years, only the use of the canal for cooling Trafford power station was enough to keep it open. In his autobiography George Jones writes of his experiences as a boatman in the 1960s