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The water you can hear behind me
is the River Dee at Lancockland 

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in North Wales and the Horseshoe
Falls here is the point at which

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some of the water from the river
is diverted through a metre 

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house and feeds the Lancockland 
Canal. 

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Welcome to this edition of the 
Water Rd. 

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The Horseshoe Falls aren't very 
high, maybe just a foot or so, 

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but the curved Weir is 
impressively wide at 140 metres 

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or 460 feet. 
The purpose is to create a pool 

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of calm water which can be taken
into the Metre House and feed 

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the Lancockland Canal. 
The falls and the section of 

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canal between here and the Ponte
Casilla Aqueduct were authorised

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by Parliament in 18-O four and 
Thomas Telford, one of the great

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names of canal building, was the
civil engineer responsible for 

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the design. 
The Metre House is a modest 

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stone building next to the 
falls, but if you get close to 

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it you can hear the hum of 
what's going on inside. 

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It was built in 1947 to ensure 
that no excess water was taken 

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from the river. 
Sluices and valves control how 

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much water goes into the canal, 
and it's drawn through by a 

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pipe, which starts wide, then 
narrows, and then widens again. 

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It uses the Bernoulli effect, 
which says that water flows 

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faster when it reaches the 
narrower section, drawing the 

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water through. 
Outside you can see the water 

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bubbling into the canal. 
The couple of miles between the 

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Metre House and Llangollen Wharf
are just a feeder. 

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You can't bring your boat up 
here, but you can walk the 

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towpath or you can take one of 
the horse drawn trip boats. 

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So I'm with Neil from 
Llangochlin Wharf and one of the

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tricks you do here is the the 
horse drawn boat trips up the 

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the feeder. 
Do you have to have a special 

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type of horse to do that? 
Not a special horse but we try 

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and go for cobs. 
A bit smaller than a Shire for 

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the bridge, bridges etcetera. 
So we try and keep it as a cob. 

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Nice strong horses, but a little
bit smaller. 

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So you need something that's 
small enough to get through the 

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bridge holes, but still strong 
enough to tow the boats. 

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Because they're not small boats,
are they? 

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They're not, they're not small 
boats, but there's not a lot of 

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waiting to be honest. 
I mean, I always set up people 

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with these sort of boats. 
You can pull them with your 

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hand. 
They're so like once they've 

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once they've started moving the 
flow basically. 

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And do they have to be quite 
shallow? 

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Because it's not a deep feeder, 
is it? 

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Yeah, the flat bottoms where a 
lot of the boats are V shaped, 

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these are actually flat bottoms.
So what they do, they go up the 

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feeder. 
We do a short trip which goes a 

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mile up and a mile back all the 
time throughout the day. 

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And then we do a longer one on a
weekend and a Tuesday up to the 

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Horseshoe Falls. 
So we take a wrap to the 

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Chambridge Hotel. 
It takes about half, 45 minutes 

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each way. 
We stop for half an hour and let

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them take in the falls and then 
bring it, bring them back here. 

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Because the Horseshoe Falls are 
quite a feature, aren't? 

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They they're a great feature. 
Yeah. 

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I mean, it's, it's the start of 
the canal system around here. 

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Obviously the water's pumped in 
from the D, pumped in at the 

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pump house at the falls, and 
then it flows down the canal 

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here, goes for about 46 mile. 
It comes through Clangloughlin, 

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goes through Chirk, crosses the 
accurate through Chirk, down 

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Ellesmere, Whitchurch and it 
goes to a place called 

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Hurlaston, and that's where the 
reservoir is for this water 

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feeder. 
And the canal here at Llangollen

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is quite difficult to navigate 
actually, isn't it? 

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It's got lots of narrow bits. 
Why is that? 

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Yeah, there's, there are a lot, 
as I say, because it was a water

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feeder. 
The idea was it was designed 

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sort of narrow and shallow. 
There was no, there was no 

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intention when it was finished 
this stretch, 1808, there was no

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intention of putting boats on 
here. 

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It was purely a water feeder. 
And then what, what happened 

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sort of 20 years later that they
found limestone around a 

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limestone. 
So they started mining and 

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obviously the boats and the 
wharfs started appearing. 

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I mean, there's, there's, 
there's wharfs further down the 

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canal by the sun, Trevor, around
that area. 

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That's where the the horses 
would bring it down on trams, 

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the tramways and then they bring
the limestone to the boats from 

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there. 
But I mean, these days this is a

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really buzzing place, isn't it? 
I mean Lang Auckland is a is a 

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real destination. 
It is, I mean it's one of the 

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sort of North Wales jewels now, 
innit? 

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It's a jewel in the crown for 
North Wales. 

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I always think, you know, you've
got canal, you've got the river,

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you've got the railway. 
Not many, not many places have 

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all three together like this. 
So it's quite a nice, quite a 

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nice area and. 
Of course a few days ago we had 

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loads and loads of rain and it's
really showing in the D. 

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Isn't it? 
It is, yeah. 

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I mean, the D the D was pretty 
low last week and it's it's 

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filled back up. 
It's probably the driest summer 

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I've probably seen here in 12 
years. 

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And I gather that's causing 
problems for feeding your 

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horses. 
It is, yeah. 

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I mean, obviously with the with 
the farmers, there's not been as

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many cuts of the field this 
year. 

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So we are struggling for the 
feed a little bit at the moment.

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So we're we're working hard to 
get it from where we can, but 

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apparently the price is nearly 
doubled this year, so. 

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So what sort of rota do you have
for the horses then? 

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Do they do sort of what, one day
a week because you have a few 

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haven't? 
You we have, yeah, we've got 4 

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at the minute 4 working. 
We've got one that's just 

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retired. 
So we're looking for a, a fifth 

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horse through the winter. 
And basically what they do this 

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time of year, they do one in 
every four days. 

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So in the summer they do 
probably three days a week, but 

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this time of year it's every 4th
day they come in. 

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And do you think they enjoy the 
the working? 

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I think they'd love it. 
I think they'd tell us if they 

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didn't enjoy it, to be honest. 
I mean, we have, we have 1 Oscar

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called Tobias. 
And if he's not working, he's 

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pretty, pretty grumpy. 
I mean, he'll, he'll smack on 

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the dove his his hoof, you know,
he just wants to be out working 

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basically. 
And people love it because 

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there's not that many places you
can go on a horse drawn boat 

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these days, is there? 
No, I mean, I believe, correct 

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me if you're wrong, but I 
believe there's only 

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Llangloughlin and Tiverton down 
in Devon now doing it. 

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I'm not, I'm not sort of aware 
of any other places doing it. 

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So Ivor, you've just been on the
horse drawn boat trip. 

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What did you think of it? 
I think the first thing you sort

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of experience is it's very quiet
and it's a lovely peaceful trip 

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down the river and nice sort of 
shady trees all the way down. 

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So when it's sunny, it's very, 
very pleasant. 

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Really, even on a probably even 
on a hot sunny day, it's quite 

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pleasant to to go down there. 
It's quite amazing that one 

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horse can pull a quite a decent 
sized boat. 

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Yes, they were telling us that 
it was Hercules. 

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I think he could pull 30 people,
but I think they've got, they've

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got a horse that's 16 hands high
that can actually pull 50 

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people, which is quite amazing 
considering the weight of the 

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boat and the weight of people. 
Very interesting ride. 

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Of course, it's the only way you
can do that bit of canal by 

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boat. 
I think there's a sign up there 

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saying that no boats are allowed
down there. 

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So we're we're going to do the 
aqueduct on Wednesday. 

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So be it. 
That'd be interesting to see 

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that. 
But the horses are amazing, 

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absolutely amazing. 
Hercules has very furry feet, 

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which is which is was quite 
interesting. 

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Yeah, it's good, Good trip. 
The fact that the Lang Auckland 

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Canal feeds water from the River
Dee was an important factor in 

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saving the canal when the owners
of the entire Shropshire Union 

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network decided to close much of
it in 1944. 

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The London, Midland and Scottish
Railway Company kept the canal 

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open as a water supply channel, 
allowing it to survive until it 

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was taken over by British 
Waterways following 

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nationalisation in 1948. 
It was BW which reached a deal 

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with a water company to transfer
water from the Dee to Hurlaston 

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Reservoir, and you can hear 
about how that works today in 

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the previous episode, which is 
still available, in which we 

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speak to United Utilities about 
how the water is transported and

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what happens to it next. 
That's all for this episode of 

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the Water Rd from Llancochlan. 
The podcast is produced and 

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presented by me, Adam Porter. 
Next time we'll be turning off 

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the Llancochlan Canal onto the 
Montgomery, a canal which is 

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only partially restored, but 
which has plenty of work going 

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on. 
In my humble opinion, I, I think

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that it is very doable with this
if we are, as we are at the 

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moment to get to Llanimite 
within a couple of years and 

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that will be such a significant 
move. 

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And I can't, I can't over over 
egg how attractive Sally 

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Monica's in itself is. 
And the, and the visitor centre 

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is going there and run by 
volunteers. 

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So we've got all this energy 
going into it. 

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If you've enjoyed these 
podcasts, please leave a nice 

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review because it really does 
help other people to find us. 

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And don't forget to follow or 
subscribe so you're alerted when

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future episodes are published. 
Thank you for listening to the 

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Water Rd.