When Josef Haydn composed the Emperor Quartet in 1797 – a melody much later to become the German national anthem – a shipping canal between Vienna and Wiener Neustadt was to be built in the same year.
Sebastian of Maillard born in Lorraine, pioneer engineer of Emperor King Francis II acquired the technical know how from England. In the contrary to France the English built their narrow canals with lock chambers only about 8 feet of width. They were called economic canals because of their low building cost. The below download describes and illustrates the possible journey of Maillard‘s study trip on the in 1795/96 already working canals between London and Manchester. It is only known that Maillard studied the Bridgewater Canal there. The canal journey shown here with amazing pictures is not historically passed down. If you want to put it that way you can say: Josef Haydn the famous composer of Viennese Classic was exporting music to England in his London years between 1791 and 1795 while at the same time Sebastian of Maillard was importing english art of engineering to Austria.
The description of the today touristy used british canals should show the residents and political decision supporters of the neighbour townships of the formerly navigable canal between Vienna and Wiener Neustadt which chances and beauties these industrial monuments hold.
A lot of thanks to the english friends and supporters of www.walkinginside.at who make the effort to provide fotos with high resolution in order to show a brief professional british history of canals in a book.
Download:
English Narrow Canals – Ideals for the Wiener Neustädter Kanal 24.06.16