Aye. I'm not in the best of health, and I'm not sure which of us was the worst for wear as we stood there on the towpath trying to recover. I was at least dry and not so cold. I initially thought it was a dog, too, belonging to the the passer-by, without whose help I could not have managed.
The poor thing did end up burying itself in the hedge and looked like it would need further rescue, but I left it alone so that both it and I could recover a little. By the time more help arrived it had gone, so hopefully it's warming itself in the sun somewhere safe.
Well that's a first; just pulled a young deer from the canal. It was trying to swim down the gap between boat and towpath. Passer-by loosened stern rope so there was enough room for me to pull the animal out by the antlers. Poor thing just stood on the towpath shivering.
Photo of a narrowboat cruising along a canal lined with low hedges and fields with the occasional tree still yet to come into leaf, under a patchy cloud blue sky.
A rather grand morning on the Grand Union
#boatlife
#ukcanals #canal #narrowboat
#KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways
Why should we all fund totally unnecessary loos because some people don't want to use their own loo? How far away is your nearest elsan now?
My point is, if waterways are actually in decline, that's a funding problem, and that's primarily down to the Govt.
Hence, #FundBritainsWaterways
I always get principle/principal wrong.
Waterpoints are all over the network. WC is a basic requirement that is met everywhere by on-boat facilities. Elsan & waste disposal are in theory never more than a day's cruise apart. Is there anywhere where this is not the case?
My bad. *Principal* assets, the main bits of the infrastructure that make everything navigable.
Why, given the £ squeeze, should the CRT be spending money on toilets? Doesn't every boat have a toilet?
How many elsans removed?
Leaky, maybe, but still functional. When have locks never been leaky?
CRT data shows steady improvement in condition of principle assets from BW era until 2024, when, after the effects of the exceptional and significant expense of Govt-mandated reservoir works following Toddbrook and the freeze in the Govt. grant from 2022, the condition KPIs started deteriorating.
Photo of a tree-lined canal with a cruiser tied up at an end-of-garden mooring on the offside and a distant pair of narrowboats moored against the towpath.
Catherine de Barnes, a name of early Norman origin for a village that didn't become really established until the Warwick & Birmingham Canal arrived late 18th century. Soundtrack here is birdsong and jet engine 🛥️🐦⬛🛫 (B'ham airport 3km away)
#boatlife #ukcanals
#KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways
As a rookie I opened a paddle fully on a lock on the Avon for some guy with a small cruiser. Looked back to see him wrestling with the rope as his boat was getting thrown around 🫣
Then someone did same to me on a T&M lock. Put my back out trying vainly to stop my boat from belting the gate.
Also, never, ever trust a lock, especially a filling one. Briefly turned my back once at a lock near Cropredy, and when I turned back my boat was charging towards the top gate at ramming speed. Gave the gate a hell of a whack. Some of the locks on the Trent & Mersey are particularly vicious.
Cool vid 👍
The rule is not to run engines or generators *whilst moored* between 20:00 and 08:00. There's no rule that prevents you from moving your own boat at any time of day or night. It's only hire companies that generally do not allow their customers to move in darkness.
And you'll have to walk the route to Stroud soon to see it abandoned in its abandoned state. That section is being restored, and they're making good progress on restoring the 'missing mile' either side of the motorway.
The old canal route through Framilode is lovely and really quite evocative. It was mostly dry and reed filled when I walked it. Sadly, the lock onto the Severn and its basin is filled in and anyway on private property.
The lock was part of the Stroudwater Navigation, which pre-dated the Gloucester & Sharpness by 48 years. When the G&S reached the Stroudwater in 1820, traffic on the stretch from Saul Junction to Framilode declined. Some of the canal still survives in Framilode, but there are no plans to restore it.
CPO?
That's the southern end of the Birmingham & Fazeley, right? Did look at that as an alternate route, but I'm not sure I would have survived the 24 locks in less than 4 miles on that end of the canal.
Aye, it was quite heavy. The plan was to stop for a rest then travel on for another hour or two of lock-free waterway, but rain has stopped play for today.
And I've travelled four different canals in the Birmingham area now, and am amazed at how few easy moorings there are, added to which, this time through the eastern suburbs of the UK's second largest city, how few shops there are close to the canal. There was severe chocolate withdrawal symptoms 😵💫
Archive pic of Gas Street Basin in central Birmingham shown, despite the fact that today's journey didn't go anywhere near there, because it was neither a day nor a part of the network for photos (very industrial, in a modern, not-even-some-heritage-interest kind of way).
Journey made easier by a couple of gates left open on the Garrison locks and a hire boat crew who initially tried to set the first Camp Hill lock against me just as I was about to open the gates at the other end, but after much beeping very kindly worked the lock for me. Made all the difference.
Photo of Gas Street Basin in central Birmingham, featuring an old, refurbished, brick-built, basin-side property and a historic working boat against a background of modern high-rise architecture.
Tied up just as the rain started on a heavy, 11-lock day on the Birmingham & Warwick Junction Canal and the former Warwick & Birmingham Canal (now the Birmingham end of the Grand Union). I swear #boatlife was easier a couple of year ago 👴
#ukcanals #narrowboat
#KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways
Believe one of the pounds (IIRC last one before the top lock if going up) has a tendency to get low. When I went up one time, it was not possible to get to the landing (luckily, there were vlockies on). If passing another boat going in opposite direction, wise not to stray too far into the offside.
All three Warwick canals would, along with the Grand Junction Canal and other waterways, merge into the Grand Union Canal in 1929 in an effort to remain viable in the face of competition from rail and, increasingly in the inter-war years, road transport.
The canal was financed by the Warwick & Birmingham Canal and the Warwick & Napton Canal, and was built to alleviate congestion at the busy southern end of the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal.
Photo of a narrowboat about to pass under a modern road bridge on a tree-lined canal, with Canal and River Trust canoes tied up to the offside in the foreground.
Birmingham & Warwick Junction Canal, one of the later canals not completed until 1844, long after canal mania had subsided and just as railway mania was beginning to get up a head of steam.
#boatlife
#ukcanals #canal #narrowboat
#KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways
What I don't understand is why the T&M didn't simply charge their tolls at the junction itself, instead of at a lock c.154ft from the junction?
Seen this viewpoint elsewhere, and technically I think you're right. It was built by the authority of the original Act authorising the Trent & Mersey by the Trent & Mersey as a legal protection of their tolls when the Middlewich branch was built.
When the Birmingham & Liverpool Junction Canal extended the Chester from Nantwich to Wolverhampton, the Middlewich idea was revived. But the T&M still refused to allow a direct connection, insisting instead on building the extremely short, heavily tolled Wardle Canal between the two.
The Middlewich was the route the Chester Canal wanted to build, but opposition from the Trent & Mersey forced the Chester to terminate at Nantwich, and it suffered financially for it, the only pre-canal mania waterway to fail. It was saved when the Ellesmere Canal linked Chester to Ellesmere Port.
Well worth it 👍