"Navigating Highland glens, rolling countryside, river valleys and city sprawl," "Britain's canals cut a sedate path through some of the country's finest scenery." "Canals were the transport arteries at the heart of a booming industrial age." "A network of locks, tunnels and aqueducts helped carry goods to every corner of the land and beyond," "transforming 19th-century Britain into an economic superpower." "Today, over 2,000 miles of restored canals offer a gateway into a different world." "For me, and many others, the towpaths alongside them offer the perfect way to explore this heritage on foot." "Hello, and welcome to the World Heritage city of Bath in Somerset." "It was the Georgians who turned this into a luxury spa resort, quite literally fit for a king." "But today I'm hereto explore its other water attraction." "This grand river is the Avon, and it's just a short walk to an inconspicuous entrance and one of Britain's greatest waterways." "It was a canal superhighway linking two of the country's most important ports" " Bristol and London." "My walk today is a tale of two halves." "There's the rise, fall and rise again of this grand canal and then there's the story of how this waterway almost became the last line of defence against the Nazis." "This is an intriguing story of restoration, resistance and renaissance." "With no reliable roads at the time, only mud tracks, the Kennet  Avon Canal was opened in 1810 to provide a valuable trade link between Bristol and London." "This was by way of a 57-mile link between my starting point today by the river Avon at Bath, and the river Kennet at Newbury." "My walk today will follow what is arguably the most picturesque part of the canal as it curves its way around the Avon valley." "The canal runs shoulder to shoulder with the river, which becomes unnavigable here because of the varying changes in depth." "After Bradford-on-Avon the course straightens out as it heads toward Devizes, finishing at the top of the breathtaking Caen Hill flight of locks, arguably the greatest engineering achievement on this section of the canal, one of the seven listed wonders of British Waterways." "This restored pumping station at the beginning of my walk is a clue as to the first engineering challenge which the canal builders faced 200 years ago." "They had to keep the canal supplied with water as it climbed up the steep Avon Valley ahead." "For me this means a bit of an uphill walk going along a succession of six beautifully restored locks rising 65 feet to the rooftops of Bath." "And here you can't help but notice the buildings make use of a distinctive honey-coloured stone." "This unmistakable building material was actually formed over 135 million years ago when Bath was under a shallow sea." "But it wasn't until the 18th century that it took off as a spa resort, leaving this legacy of exemplary Georgian architecture." "So Bath provided a very glamorous backdrop for the start of this canal." "Its arrival also crucially provided a shortcut route for trade." "Ships no longer had to navigate the treacherous south coast to transport their goods to London." "Today, this waterway might provide city centre escapism but surprisingly it nearly went to wrack and ruin." "I'm meeting Mike Rodd from the Kennet  Avon Canal Trust, the charity which tirelessly fought to bring the canal back from near extinction." "Mike, it's a very beautiful, picturesque spot, but it hasn't always been that way." "It's lovely now, but 200 years ago this was a hub of industrialisation." "This was part of the industrial revolution that happened right throughout the UK." " Then the railways came." " Changed everything." "Absolutely." "And the railway lines slowly started to eat into the traffic on the canal and the canal fell into disuse." "By 1950, this canal was not operating." " So this was a very different picture." " Total desolation at that point." "At that point, of course, it was a question of what happened, and right throughout the country round about that time, there was a move to get canals open again, and the Kennet  Avon Canal Trust was formed specifically to do that 60, 70 years ago." "Vision is one thing, money and funding is another thing." "How did you get the cash for it all?" "Well, during the '50s, up until the '90s, it was really on the back of volunteers." "They did a phenomenal job, got their picks and shovels out." "The Trust, together with British Waterways and the local authorities, went after a Heritage Lottery Fund grant, which they got." "£25 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant." "The biggest ever awarded and probably the biggest ever that will be awarded." "That £25 million got the canal to a point where eight, nine years ago the canal was in a fabulous condition." "So this canal's got history, got people, got communities." "It's a real survivor, isn't it?" "It's quite amazing." "Of course, now it's a major leisure industry." "It supports..." "Well, at least seven million people a year visit the canal in one way or the other." " I look forward to all my encounters." " Thank you very much." "Lovely to meet you." "Bye." "The mission of the Kennet  Avon Trust is to preserve the canal for generations to come." "The same could not be said, however, of the original owners." "Their interests were wealth and power." "When this route got the go-ahead from parliament, it was 1793 and canal mania was at its height." "20 other new canals also had the go-ahead, expanding across the country." "Canals crucially fuelled the spread of industrialisation." "As manufacturing grew, so did the need for materials." "Here, the canal company saw there was a wealth of goods which needed transporting - everything from stone, coal, timber, straw, manure, and even farm produce to feed the growing towns and cities along this route." "My next marker is an unmistakable building which straddles the canal." "That must be Cleveland House, which is KC HQ." "This was the former headquarters of The Kennet and Avon Canal Company, a 24-strong management committee, which controlled the 57-mile route from this rather resplendent position." "I've been reading about a little secret spot tucked away in the roof of this tunnel that reveals a bit more about how canal trade was controlled by the company and profits were made from levying tolls." "I've walked under a fair few bridges during this series and one tunnel is much like the next." "You'd be forgiven for thinking that that was a mistake in the masonry." "It's not, it's actually a clever little hatch that connects Cleveland House to the waterway so that the boatmen could leave money and paperwork and the clerks would collect those things on the way through." "Genius." "But the pursuit of wealth and power also carried a price tag for the Canal Company." "This stage of the route needed to forge a path through one of the most exclusive areas of Bath." "To get permission to go through, they needed to pay the owners a whopping £2,000 and the deal also demanded that they built these ornate bridges." "Sydney Gardens is also the city's oldest park, a popular resort of leisure for 19th-century gentry and was frequently visited by royalty." "It's so evocative of the period." "You almost feel like you're in a Jane Austen novel, which isn't surprising because it was actually an old haunt of this 19th-century romantic writer during the years that she lived here." "Sydney Gardens ends my city walk and the contrast between one end of this tunnel and the other couldn't be starker." "Cor." "What a lovely verdant surprise when you pop out of that long tunnel." "It's rather like being spat out into an entirely different world, going from a manicured suburban corridor into lush rolling countryside." "Here, river, road, rail and canal lie shoulder to shoulder along the valley corridor, a visible reminder of four ages of travel." "This extraordinary confluence of travel is a lasting testament to the early canal engineers." "They provided a blueprint for generations to come, by finding the simplest way to navigate the landscape." "I'm just over a mile out of Bath and now I'm in rural Somerset." "But the canal is buzzing with life." "You can't help but take a peak inside the many different moored boats, which seem as much a feature as any of the locks, bridges and tunnels of this canal." "Look at this." "Now, that's a very unusual vessel." "It's like a stealth barge." "You'd expect to find that on the Congo not the Kennet  Avon canal." "It doesn't look like anyone's home today but clearly this canal attracts creative types." "There's a really different feel to this canal." "There are quirky works of art dotted along it and things like this." "It says here:" "I love you to sit on me but please don't leave rubbish by me." "Presumably it's made by this man." "I like it." "I'd like one of these in my garden." "This canal certainly seems to draw people to it." "I've arranged to meet the Leake family who've made the canal their home." "Hop on up." "We've got Theo and Lawrie." "Hello." "Do you like living on a boat?" "Yeah, I really like... really love it." "Why?" "What's so good about it?" "What's so cool about living on a boat?" " Well, I really like the outdoors." " That's cool." "We all like the outdoors." "That's good." "How long have you lived on the canal?" "Six years." "We managed to get a loan and we found a really beautiful boat." "And that was the beginning of life on water." "I suppose what you've got here is a real freedom, right on the edge of the canal, and you've got all your lovely community people as well." "Hello!" "That's what I've noticed about this canal." "It is so friendly, isn't it?" "It's really friendly, such a really big feeling of community." "We all watch out for each other, watch out for each other's kids." "We all share lifts to school." "It's a lovely way to live." " What do you do, Johnny?" " I build boats, mostly." "How very handy." "And what do you do?" "I'm a seamstress." "I make clothes and corsets." "You mentioned school for these guys." "How far away is the school?" "School is in Bathampton, which, depending on where we are moored..." "At the moment it's quite an easy run." "The school is right next to the canal." "They really promote the boaties." "The headmaster is amazing." "Loves the kids, loves the diversity of the families." "You get the posh families and you get the boaty families." "Shove 'em together and see what happens." "Where were these two born?" "Theo was born right here on the boat." "No!" "Did you know?" "Is that what you wanted?" " That's exactly what I wanted." " With Dad on hand." "Dad, two midwives." "It was beautiful." "What a place to be born." "Do you know where you were born?" "I was born... on the boat." "You were born on this boat." " Yeah." " That is so cool." " See you." " Bye." "I'm almost in VWltshire now and for the first time I get a clear view of the broad valley which the canal engineers had to cut a path through." "The natural shape of this valley meant the route was predetermined." "The canal had to hug its contours." "But the real draw were the business opportunities which beckoned." "The canal company forged ahead to secure the route because they knew there was a ready-made market keen to trade along it." "Dundas Wharf was originally built to serve the nearby Conkwell quarries, enabling the distinctive local stone to be transported by boat." "But it was also a trade junction of another kind." "Here, the Kennet  Avon Canal is joined by the Somerset Coal Canal." "It sewed nearly 30 different collieries before its final closure some 100 years later." "Today, a short section has been restored for permanent moorings." "Here the canal builders also faced a problem." "In order to keep the route running on the same level and avoid expensive locks, it would have to cross the River Avon." "A bridge was needed." "For this, the Canal Company brought in John Rennie, an emerging star of civil engineering, and someone who, at the turn of the 19th century, was making a name for himself in the world of bridge building." "Rennie might not have achieved the fame of his engineering contemporaries, like James Brindley and Thomas Telford, but the Dundas aqueduct is considered to be his crowning achievement, as well as a masterpiece of 18th-century classical-style architecture." "It was completed in 1805 and named after Charles Dundas, the first chairman of the Canal Company." "Not only is it a listed building but in 1951 it became the first ever canal structure to be designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument." "But the fragile nature of the stone led to erosion." "The aqueduct developed leaks, and by the '50s was unusable." "For a brief period in the '70s you could even walk along the dry canal bed of the aqueduct." "It's since been relined, restored and then reopened in 1984." "This isn't the only aspect of canal life here to have seen a renaissance." "The goods might well have changed, but today trading still goes on right next to the water." "That's what you want on a walk, isn't it?" "Very civilised." " Business good today?" " There you go." "Not too bad today." " Enjoy." " Thank you." "Oh, lovely." "Waxed truckles of cheese." "Hello." "I wasn't going to have any but have you got any nice tangy cheddar?" "We certainly have." "I haven't had a lick of my ice cream so let's have a taste." " Extra-mature cheddar." " Where's it from?" "It's from Snowdonia." "Mm." "That's lovely." "I'll have a truckle." "Thank you." " There you go." "Enjoy your cheese." " Thank you." "He's very young in charge of a boat." "It's such a busy canal and it has a very special atmosphere." "Especially on a day like today." "The sun is shining and everyone is quite happy." "But every single boat that's gone past so far-little wave." "But this canal hasn't been without its problems." "As I approach the halfway point of my walk," "I've also reached the section which was notoriously problematic before its restoration, with leakage and breaches." "Much of the £25 million lottery grant went into reinforcing this stretch of the canal." "Although this bit of the canal looks as flat as the rest of it, we're actually on a slope here." "This is the section of the waterway that needed significant reinforcement to stop it slipping all the way down there into the river Avon." "It's now only a short walk to Ronnie's next creation, the Avoncliff Aqueduct, where he had to cross the River Avon for a second time." "It's certainly a good-looking structure by most standards but in engineering circles this is perhaps an aqueduct he might have wanted to keep quiet about." "Straight after completion in 1801, its central arch immediately sagged and it had to be repaired many times." "The porous Bath stone was again his undoing and Rennie is said to have regretted ever using it." "You couldn't really start this walk in a more picturesque place, Bath, and then you burst through into rural Wiltshire, and there's so much life along this canal." "And not one, but two beauteous aqueducts." "The next mite is probably the most bustling stretch of towpath I've seen so far." "Ten miles from the start and the walk leads to Bradford-on-Avon, a kind of mini-Bath, where the older buildings are made from the same Jurassic sandstone." "Another bit of bustle along the walk." "Not so little" " Bradford-on-Avon is a seriously busy spot and it always has been." "By the 19th century, business on the canal was flourishing." "This wharf was a busy distribution centre where goods were loaded and dispatched by boat for delivery around the world." "See you." "The Kennet  Avon Canal was profitable for some 40 years but the rise of the Great Western railway network was to seat its fate." "Ironically it was the railway that took over the canal in 1852." "By hiking toils and imposing a restrictive 4mph speed limit, they squeezed business out until the canal was no longer viable and the trains took over." "Although the rail company had a statutory obligation to keep the canal navigable, over the following decades and into the 20th century it fell into disrepair, and activity on the canal had all but ground to a halt." "That was, until the summer of 1940 when Allied code breakers intercepted a message from Nazi headquarters that pieced the nation in jeopardy." "Hitler had given his directive to invade Britain and this stretch of the canal played a crucial role in responding to the nation's fear of a possible invasion from the south by creating a second line of defence." "The canal was a ready-made boundary because advancing troops couldn't easily cross the water, and so it formed a defensive barrier, known as the GHQ line." "I've walked sections of the KA canal before and I know that there is something lurking through the brambles." "Come with me." "Dotted all along the canal are pillboxes like this one." "I'm going to meet local historian Hugh Pihlens who can explain how the canal intriguingly found a new purpose as Britain's potential last line of defence." "What were they doing here?" "What are they doing here?" "Well, they date, of course, from the Second World War and they were built as one of our key defences." "Think back to May 1940 and France had been overrun in just six weeks." "Hitler was standing on the English Channel, thinking:" "Could we invade England?" "And the huge threat was there." "Our response was to set up a coastal crust of defences around the sea but also to have a wonderful series of lines of defence along rivers and along canals." "But one of the most important was here on the Kennet  Avon Canal through Wiltshire and Berkshire." "And there were a huge number of these pillboxes that were built all the way along it." "How many pillboxes in total?" "Do you know there were 18,000 that were built." "They were built between the very end of May in 1940 and September." "18,000 in all, but there are about 6,000 remaining." " Shall we go and look at the others?" " Let's." "The canal then was unused, really." "Some of the lock gates were damaged and weren't holding water." " So it was a sad scene?" " It was a sad scene." "But it definitely did play its part because they could use the canal where there was water to carry materials for these pillboxes, and for all the other defences built along the canal." " So it flourished a little again." " It flourished a little for 1940, definitely." "And who was going to man them?" "They were going to be manned by local defence volunteers." "And local defence volunteers..." "In just six weeks, through June and the first two weeks of July, there were one and a half million volunteers." "That, of course, became known as the Home Guard." "Churchill called them the Home Guard in a speech to the BBC." "Dad's Army is what they were." "They were men who were too frail or too old to join the armed forces but, my goodness me, they rallied to the call." "Here's one more, Julia." "There are 6,000 remaining, there were 18,000 originally and they're here as testament to all the work that was done in 1940." "These pillboxes never actually saw active service but they are a lasting monument to the Devizes Dad's Army, who were ready and willing to play their part." "So this brings us full circle." "There's been boom and bust, restoration and now renaissance." "What an amazing journey this canal has had." "I'm almost at the end of my walk, and where I'm heading now symbolises the restoration of this canal." "This flight of 16 locks raises the canal 235 feet." "It's listed as one of the seven wonders, not of the world, but of British Waterways." "This was a list drawn up by Robert Aickman, the founding father of the Inland Waterways Association over 50 years ago." "This extraordinary spectacle is the steepest climb on the whole of the 57-mile route." "It takes four or five hours to negotiate this flight by boat and these intriguing side arm reservoirs make sure the locks are kept topped up because every time they open, they lose a whopping 40,000 gallons." "Even these reservoirs have now created a life of their own with rare animals and plants making a home here." "This is how the canal looked 40 years ago." "Weeds filled the side ponds and the locks were completely derelict." "In the following years, the passion with which the public became engaged in its restoration was unprecedented." "And after years of campaigning, fundraising and backbreaking volunteer work, the canal was officially reopened by the Queen in 1990." "The Caen Hill flight of locks was the final icing on the cake." "It was the last part to be built when the canal first opened in 1810 and the last part to be restored 180 years later." "This canal has certainly been full of surprising history." "It's been a 19th-century superhighway, a derelict ditch, a desperate last line of defence for a nation under possible attack, and now a leisure park that's also home to people seeking an alternative way of life." "For over two centuries this beautiful waterway has rolled on the waves of varying fortunes and continues to do so." "The Kennet  Avon Canal is a real story of our time, a true story of survival, and long may it continue." "Look at that."