The Missing Tree Traditional Cache

History of the Selby canal

The Selby Canal joins up to two rivers, the river Ouse and the
river Aire. The canal is 5.5 miles long
and around 4 feet deep. Selby canal took four years to build
between 1774 and 1778 it was completed on 24 April 1778. William
Jessop designed and built the canal for the Aire and Calder
navigation company. It cost £20,000.The canal was built to move
coal and manufactured goods because the roads were not very good,
and boats were forced to navigate the river Ouse and the dangerous
river Aire.

Because Selby canal was to narrow and shallow, bigger boats could
not get through. So the Aire and Calder canal company decided to
make a bigger canal stretching from Knottingley to Goole. Which
could carry bigger boats and with trains in the 1870s they carried
the goods faster meaning the traders did not use it any more.