National Waterways Museum

The story of Britain's 2,000-mile canal network, based in Gloucester's restored Victorian docks

The National Waterways Museum occupies the Llanthony Warehouse in Gloucester's Historic Docks, and it is one of the best industrial heritage museums in England. The collection covers the history of Britain's 2,000-mile inland waterway network — the canals, river navigations, and associated infrastructure that made the Industrial Revolution possible — with particular depth on the West Country's own canal history.

The museum's fleet of historic boats moored outside is as impressive as the indoor displays: narrowboats, a steam dredger, a tug, and a floating exhibit on a converted barge. Interactive displays in the main galleries let you operate lock mechanisms and steer a virtual canal boat. The exhibition on Gloucester Docks itself — how they worked, what they traded, why they declined — is well done and genuinely informative.

The museum is at Llanthony Road, within the Historic Docks complex. Combined tickets with other Gloucester museums are available.

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A story
The canal that connects Gloucester Docks to the River Severn was built in 1827 specifically because ocean-going ships couldn't navigate the tidal Severn all the way to Gloucester. Before the canal, goods had to be transhipped at Sharpness onto smaller boats. The 16-mile Gloucester and Sharpness Canal was the widest and deepest ship canal in the world when it opened, and it immediately turned Gloucester into a major port — a status it held until road transport made the canal economically marginal in the mid-twentieth century.

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