Beatrix Canal apparent to the Dutch throne, Princess Beatrix. Beatrix Canal The Beatrix Canal (Dutch: "Beatrixkanaal") is an 8.4 km long canal in the southern Netherlands. It was constructed to provide the city of Eindhoven with access to the Wilhelmina Canal. In order to be able to regulate the level of the Gender and Dommel streams, which regularly threatened to flood Eindhoven's inner city, an additional Discharge Canal ("Afwateringskanaal"), which is not open to navigation, was dug to connect the Beatrix Canal and the Dommel stream. Into this branch, the Gender now discharges. Upon completion, the canal was named in honour of
Beatrix Potter Castle near Lake Windermere. Here Beatrix met Hardwicke Rawnsley, vicar of Wray and later the founding secretary of the National Trust, whose interest in the countryside and country life inspired the same in Beatrix and who was to have a lasting impact on her life. At about the age of 14, Beatrix began to keep a diary. It was written in a code of her own devising which was a simple letter for letter substitution. Her "Journal" was important to the development of her creativity, serving as both sketchbook and literary experiment: in tiny handwriting she reported on society, recorded