The canal as a research space

The Trent & Mersey Canal at Kidsgrove is not a typical tourist destination. It moves through the Harecastle Tunnel and in doing so sweeps with it traces of minerals from Victorian engineering and coal pit outflows.

It is fed by a number of inputs from the north near the connection to the north westh canal network, which starts a few hundred metres to the north of the tunnel. At 2,676 metres long, Harecastle Tunnel has a complex history at the heart of the Industrial north, alongside the embedded coal mining heritage of Staffordshire, alongside folklore and unique ecologies that help create its legacy amongst local inhabitants and other species existing in its canalside locale.

It’s unique histories and ecologies linked to post-industrial heritage and the role that canals played in that story, make it an interesting site to consider the agency of waters. Canals were created for industry, but are now more centred upon leisure and tourism as well as biodiversity monitoring. The canal at Kidsgrove for me, is a site through which to question what is wild and what is natural, beautiful and ugly, rubbish and valuable.