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Love legend? Fascinated by folklore? Spellbound by stories
of spooks? Hire a canal boat and you'll find yourself immersed
in a landscape of mysterious myths and tales. Ghostly happenings
have been reported on the canals of Britain for hundreds of
years. Ever since the canals were built in the 18th Century,
the tales of haunting began...
Hire a canal boat from Union Wharf Marina
and cruise through the spooky territory of the Grand Union
Canal...
Blisworth tunnel's tragic history still
haunts today's boaters. Fourteen men died in its construction
when the original tunnel collapsed. A mysterious fork in the
tunnel was seen by recent boaters. When they emerged from
the tunnel and questioned it, they were assured that a fork
no longer exists. The image they saw was the location of the
original tunnel- where the tragic accident occurred 200 years
earlier.
Listen out for 'Spring Heeled Jack' as you
pass beneath the Grand Union's bridges in the south- the echo
of his footsteps here have terrorised boatmen since the 1830s.
This phantasm was said to leap clean across a canal to attack
his victims.
If you hire a canal boat from Alvecote Marina
you may find yourself on the Trent and Mersey Canal, home
to many more tales of spooks and spectres...
The eerie Harecastle Tunnel was so notorious
for ghostly occurrences that 19th century boatmen would avoid
it at all cost. The beheaded corpse of Kit Crewbucket was
found here and has haunted the canal tunnel ever since.
At Brindley Bank, the dark tale of murdered
Christina Collins has been scaring boatmen since 1839. Legend
has it that ghostly bloodstained rocks appear at the site
where she met her tragic end.
If you continue your journey west, the Trent
and Mersey canal leads onto the Shropshire Union Canal, perhaps
Britain's most haunted canal. At it's northern end lies Chester-
where many have glimpsed the ghost of a Roman Centurion who
guards the city's walls. Further south, the shrieking spectre
of Market Drayton is known to haunt boatmen who pass through.
And beware the infamous Bridge 39... Supposedly haunted by
the ghost of a drowned 19th century boatman who appears in
the form of a hairy black creature.
Figments of the imagination or ghosts from
the depths of history? Hire a canal boat and dare to venture
into the ghostly territory of the canals!
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