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During the seventeenth century attention was given to improving river navigation in several parts of the country, in return for tolls from boats carrying cargo on the river. Before the civil war the improvements to the River Ouse were mainly carried out by Arnold Spencer of Cople, who overstretched himself and was in debt, so that the patent for the navigation was passed to others. The toll books have not survived and the author is only able to make an estimate of income and tonnage using the river. The introduction gives an account of the improvements to the river by, e.g. sluices, scouring the river, ditches and tow paths etc., and of the people who undertook them. The story is told through transcriptions of 104 documents from the Francklin manuscripts and one from the Whitbread manuscripts at Bedfordshire Archives.
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