1. About 15,000 people are thought to live afloat in Britain - on canals, rivers and coasts; in cities, in the country and in harbours. 

2. "Roses and Castles" is the popular name for the traditional paintwork of the narrowboats - bunches of roses and medieval castles being common features.

3. In the hit film The Full Monty (1997), the Sheffield Canal was used in the opening scene when Gaz (Robert Carlyle) and his friend Dave (Mark Addy) get marooned on a partially submerged car.

4. Standedge Tunnel on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal is the highest (196m above sea level), longest (5,029m) and deepest canal tunnel (194m) in the country.

5. The Anderton Boat Lift, near Northwich in Cheshire, is one of the greatest monuments to Britain's last canal age and known as the Cathedral of the Canals. Built in 1875, it was the world's first and is currently the UK's only vertical boat lift. Recently restored, it links the Trent and Mersey Canal and River Weaver.

6. Liverpool's Albert Dock, which cost £100m to redevelop and has the greatest concentration of Grade I -listed architecture anywhere in the UK, can only be accessed by boat from the River Mersey. However, there are plans to extend the Leeds & Liverpool Canal to the Dock.

7. Registered charity the Inland Waterways Association (IWA), which campaigns for the conservation, use, maintenance, restoration and sensitive development of Britain's canals and river navigations, was formed in 1946.

8. The Greywall Tunnel on the Basingstoke Canal is no longer open to boats after the crown of the roof collapsed in 1932. Canoeists still managed to navigate much of it until it was sealed off for safety reasons in the early 1950s. It's now home to many species of bat and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

9. The 23-mile (37km) Wey & Arun Canal is romantically referred to as "London's lost route to the sea". It was built to provide an inland link between the Thames and the Channel. 

10. In March 2003, Coronation Street baddie Richard Hillman (played by Brian Capron), drowned after driving his car into a Manchester canal. A terrified Gail and her children were rescued.