Martin wrote thus .. > Another station I'm very familiar with (my old office was right next to it) > is Audley End, which is in the village of Wendens Ambo near Saffron Waldon. > But apparently the squire at Audley End House a mile away had enough clout to > get the railway to name their station after his gaff rather than after the > village! I've also heard it claimed that he had enough influence to not only > require the railway to divert their route adding a couple of unnecessary > tunnels, but sadly to put the kybosh on one of the London to Cambridge canal > schemes. However given that it succeeded in getting its Act of Parliament, > I'm not convinced. > As a 'newbie' - well, no longer such a 'newbie as I was last week, after spending a couple of days on the Macclesfield canal in a GRP narror cruiser, I'm curious as to why the canals all seemed to require 'Acts of Parliament'
Was this because they crossed many different people's land - or was there some other, more important, reason, such as raising sufficient finance to start the digging or purchasing the land? I've read about the Tolls, but I've never been sure who that money actually ended up with, the land-owner, waterway authority or the exchequer? Trevor [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
