The Ashby de la Zouche Canal

1 Of the 30 miles length of the Ashby canal only a short stretch is in Warwickshire. The canal enters the county to form its junction with the Coventry canal and hence the route to London. The major length of the canal is in Leicestershire, serving the many colleries for whose trade the canal was built. The idea of a canal was first brought up in 1782 but quickly dropped. In 1792 a revised plan was put forward for a canal from Ashby Wolds to Griff on the Coventry line. There were problems in agreeing the junction, as the Coventry wanted floods from the Ashby to pass further along its line to provide more profit for them. Despite these objections, and a plan for the Coventry to build a canal themselves from Polesworth to Ashby, this plan was eventually agreed. By 1794 the agreed junction was changed to Marston. Cutting began in 1796 with R Whitworth and his son as engineers. In 1799 they were replaced by Newbold. The canal was opened in 1804. Initialy trade was poor. The first dividend was paid in 1828, but by 1846 the canal had been sold to the Midland Railway. They ran the canal profitably for a while but by the 1890s had started to allow maintenance to fall off. In 1944 the Moira-Donisthorpe section was closed, and in 1957 the Donisthorpe to Ilott Wharf section shut down.