It was more of a river navigation than a placid canal, although the inland waterways traditionally had families living on the boat as permanent homes I'm not aware of that on navigable rivers like the severn,River navigations are tricky and dangerous at times,no place for a family. It seems to have been build for the salt trade, to get it to gloucester docks, with the trows bringing coal back on the return journey.
I do wonder tho' whether there may be a connection with the salt process, if a warterman was something to do with pumping the salt laden water around.
if you search droitwich canal there is lots of info, when i looked at the map there is a lot of water around droitwich
mike
