TONNAGE RATES.
| d. | ||
| For Coal, Lime and Slate | 1¼ | per Ton, per Mile. |
| Iron-stone, Building-stone, Grinding-stone, Lime-stone, Bricks and Tiles, and for all Cattle, Sheep, Swine and other Beasts. | ¾ | ditto. ditto. |
| For Cotton, Wool, Hops, Corn, Timber, Bark, Wrought Iron, Cheese, &c | 2 | ditto. ditto. |
Fractions to be paid as for Half a Mile and as for Half a Ton.
Dung, Ashes, Marl, Clay for Manure, Gravel, Sand, &c. for the purpose of making or repairing any public or private Road, are exempt from Toll.
Boats, only half the Width of the Locks, are to pay for Twenty Tons, unless Two shall pass together; then, not less than Ten Tons each.
Corn, or other Grain; Sheep, or other Cattle; Iron-stone or Wrought Iron, got or made upon the Banks of the Canal; Dung, Ashes, Marl for Manure, Gravel, Sand, and Stone for Roads, are exempt from the charge of Five-pence per Ton to the Coventry Canal Company.
It appears, that by arrangement with the Leicester Navigation Proprietors, and as an Indemnification for the great Expense they have been at in constructing Railways, &c. to the Coal Works on Thringstone Common, and to those in the parishes of Swannington and Coleorton, that they shall receive Two Shillings and Sixpence per Ton for all Coal, which shall pass a certain place in the lordship of Blackfordby, about Three Miles west of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, to be carried on the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Canal.The estimate for the whole of the proposed works, made by Messrs. Jessop and Whitworth, February 24th, 1794, amounted to £138,238; but the estimate from Ashby Wolds, to the Coventry Canal, was only £27,316, 11s. 4½d.
The line was set out by Mr. Robert Whitworth, and the whole length was opened in May, 1805.
It is worthy of remark, that the level, from Ashby Wolds, continues uninterrupted along the whole length of this canal, the Coventry, and part of the Oxford Canal, to Hill Morton, a distance of full seventy miles. The company are under a penalty of £50,000 if they abstract any water from the Gopsall Park Estate, or in any way deteriorate the same.
The principal object of this navigation is the export of the produce of the extensive coal and lime works in the neighbourhood of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
When authority was first obtained, for the making of this canal, it was the intention of the company to have continued the canal to the places mentioned in the title of the act, which would have made the total length of canal about fifty miles, with 252 feet of lockage. They, however, adopted railways for all the branches where lockage was necessary.
