Bingley's famous Five Rise Locks is one of thousands of historic treasures that make British Waterways the third biggest custodian of the country's listed features.

This week English Heritage announced British Waterways got its third place ranking because it cares for more than 3,000 structures from soaring aqueducts to deep dark tunnels and locks along its 2,000 miles of canals and waterways.

The Leeds-Liverpool Canal alone has 117 designated examples of industrial heritage and engineering feats dotted along its banks - the largest on a Yorkshire waterway.

As well as the Five Rise Locks, the canal stretches through the Aire Valley takes in the World Heritage village of Saltaire and its historic Robert's Park and Dowley Gap Aqueduct further along at Bingley.

In a bid to get more people out and about discovering the secrets of their local waterways and how important they were in industrial days gone by, bosses at British Waterways have linked up with a new website offering ideas for days out.

British Waterways Environment and Heritage Manager Jonathan Hart-Woods says Bingley's Five Rise Locks, which opened in 1774, is already a popular tourist attraction but there are lots more less-known gems which can be just as awe-inspiring.

He said: "Our local waterways are literally teaming with examples of how the canals brought prosperity to the UK during the 18th Century, and along with their immense educational value for today's children, they also possess simplicity of form for adults too.

"Weathered stone showing signs of towing lines, mileposts constructed using rival railway companies' materials and literally thousands of locks, bridges and tunnels each hold a story of their own charting the UK's industrial past.

"Of course, you don't need to know the story to enjoy them - you can simply visit a local waterway and spend some time imagining what the past was like!"

When Bingley's Five Rise Locks opened the Leeds Intelligence newspaper reported at the time: "This joyful and much wished for event was welcomed with the ringing of church bells, a band of music, the firing of guns by the neighbouring militia, the shouts of the spectators and all the marks of satisfaction so important an event merits."

The Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which took 40 years to build and cost £1,250,000, is still the longest man-made canal in Britain and finally linked Leeds with Liverpool in 1816.

To find out more, log on to the website www.waterscape.com.