Hi Geoffro, While drifting about the Worcester canals, I wonder if you might ask whether heavy freight was ever moved on those things? Specifically ag machinery (horse-drawn threshing machines), especially on the Thames-Severn canal? This odd bit of info may explain what my Suffolk-born g-g-grandfather was doing in Tetbury and Bristol during the early 1830s. Envious about your idyllic holiday plans... Ken Murray in New York