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17
Mar 2022
Ripon Canal to feature on BBC TV tonight
The historic Ripon Canal will be featured on BBC Four this evening when Robbie Cumming completes the last leg of a 170-mile journey aboard his boat, Naughty Lass.
On Monday, viewers of Canal Boat Diaries saw the YouTube vlogger and TV presenter set off from Wigan in the first episode of the new series.
In tonight's final episode, which starts at 730pm, he takes in the sights along the route from Knottingley to the Ripon Canal basin at the outer reaches of the English inland waterways network.
The water-borne journey, via a navigable section of the River Ouse, also features Boroughbridge Canal
Almost 250 years of history
At the time of its opening in 1773, Ripon boasted the most northerly canal basin in England at the city end of its 2.5 mile stretch.
But that claim to fame came to an end in 2002, with the opening of the Ribble Link section of the Lancaster Canal.
Just 71 years after its opening, Ripon Canal became virtually redundant overnight with the arrival of the Great Northern Railway in 1841.
Ripon provides the final entry in Robbie Cumming's Canal Boat Diaries. Picture BBC
Barges could not compete with the new rapid delivery service for coal and other goods and with the loss of trade, the canal's fate as a commercial enterprise was sealed.
The railways that caused the canal's demise soon became its owner, as the waterway was purchased by the Leeds and Thirsk Railway in 1844, which subsequently become part of the North Eastern Railway in 1855.
Decades of dereliction followed and at one stage Ripon City Council mooted the idea of filling in the canal to create an extension for the Dallamires Lane Industrial estate.
Prior to this suggestion, the British Transport Commission had obtained Royal Assent for the abandonment of the Ripon Canal in 1956.
Calls for the canal's regeneration
However, growing calls to regenerate the canal to realise its potential as a leisure and tourist asset for local residents and visitors proved successful, gaining momentum through the formation of the Ripon Canal Society.
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It reopened for navigation as far as Littlethorpe Road Bridge in 1986 and was officially reopened right into the centre of Ripon in September 1996, with the assistance of the society and local authorities and with funding from English Partnerships.
Further improvements have been brought about through a programme of work carried out by Ripon Motor Boat Club, which has its marina and clubhouse on a section of the canal near Littlethorpe.
The waterway is now managed by the Canal and River Trust, which is the charity that succeeded British Waterways. It was awarded a Green Flag for its water quality in July 2018 and the improvements have brought more wildlife to its banks. Otters are regularly spotted hunting for fish.
Previous episodes of Canal Boat Diaries can be seen on BBC iPlayer.
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