Charnwood Forest Canal

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Until the end of the eighteenth century the City of Leicester had received its supplies of coal by packhorse from the Charnwood Forest coal mines around Coalville.

In 1778, the Loughborough Canal opened up the River Soar from the Trent. In 1779 the Erewash Canal opened and provided a ready supply from the Nottinghamshire coalfields.

The Charnwood Forest Canal, sometimes known as the "Forest Line of the Leicester Navigation", was opened to Barrow Hill, near Worthington, in 1794 by the Leicester coalmasters in order to meet this competition.

Its use was limited until the Blackbrook reservoir was finished. During the floods of 1799 this collapsed, destroying some earthworks and an aqueduct, and the canal went out of use for two years. Even after some repairs were carried out, further damage occurred and what little trade there had been did not return. Stevenson suggests "the problems ... stemmed partially from the hybrid nature of its construction." It was part canal, part wagonway.

Among the latter was the section between Nanpantan and Loughborough where the considerable height difference would require a number of locks, for which there was not enough water. It was engineered by William Jessop who used an iron-edge railway, in contrast to his partner Benjamin Outram, who, for other such lines, preferred the traditional steel plateway.

It was not until 1832 that the Leicester and Swannington Railway allowed the Leicestershire miners to regain a competitive advantage, which the Nottinghamshire coal miners responded to in part by opening the Mansfield and Pinxton Railway, in 1819. This in turn led to the building of Midland Counties Railway.