THE Kennet & Avon Canal will take centre stage in a new BBC series that looks at ‘The Making of a Nation’ on Friday.

The episode looks at canal systems up and down the country and will see presenter Liz McIvor travel along the Kennet and Avon canal route, to tell a deeper story of how waterways helped change the UK– and how that legacy lives on today.

The ‘golden age’ of canals opened up trade and acted as a catalyst to the industrial revolution in the 1770s-1830s.

Liz, an expert in industrial history and curator at Bradford Industrial Museum, takes viewers on a journey which shows just how instrumental canals were in shaping our modern world and how they came to be.

She said: “The canals have been covered by television programmes before, which have lately tended to focus on them as pleasureways. This is how most of us know and love them today…but not so long ago they were used for the opposite of leisure and were not the rural idyll they now seem.

“Although so many use them, it can be hard to see how they relate to each other and get a sense of the rich history and culture they were and remain, a part of. We wanted to open up the subject and act as a way in for people who were neither boat owners nor historians.

“Each canal has its own special interest story and each region covered gave a chance to explore a different angle of a massive story.”

Canals: The Making of a Nation will be shown on BBC One on Friday at 7.30pm.