Charnwood Forest Canal

The Charnwood Forest Canal, sometimes known as the "Forest Line of the Leicester Navigation", was opened between Thringstone and Nanpantan, with a further connection to Barrow Hill, near Worthington, in 1794

It marks the beginning of a period of history that saw the introduction of railways to supplement canals and, in the end, superseding them, leading eventually to the Midland Counties Railway. It was also one of the first uses of edge-rails for a wagonway.

(This should not be confused with the Charnwood Forest Railway.)

Until the end of the eighteenth century the City of Leicester had received its supplies of coal by packhorse from the Charnwood Forest coal mines around Swannington.

However, in 1778, the Loughborough Canal opened up the River Soar from the Trent to Loughborough, and the opening of the Erewash Canal the following year allowed a ready supply of coal from the Nottinghamshire coalfields into Leicestershire at reduced prices.

In 1785, proposals to extend the Loughborough Canal south from Loughborough to Leicester were opposed by the influential Leicestershire coalmasters, even when a canal linking the mining area to the canal at Loughborough was also proposed. Gradually, however, they warmed to the idea and even came to consider a canal of their own linked to either Loughborough or the proposed Ashby Canal. By 1790 serious opposition to a branch canal from Loughborough to the coal field, known as the "Forest Line", had been won over and the following year the Leicester Navigation Company obtained an act of parliament to extend the Soar Navigation from Loughborough to Leicester, and to build the Forest Line.

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