Wednesday April 24th

Another day of short mileage and lots of locks – although with Hatton behind us, they are now narrow locks all the way until we return via Braunston and Buckby in late June. We had a lovely quiet night at Rowington and were eager to be off for the narrow locks that awaited us.

When we came this way a couple of years ago, not only was the canal very shallow, but the overhanging tree and shrub growth seriously affected our passage. This year we had noticed that C&RT and their contractors had been working very hard and all the way from Wigram’s Turn a lot of the offside vegetation had been cut back. 

Kingswood Junction on an earlier cruise

We passed through Turner’s Green, which historically had been our usual mooring place, and were soon negotiating the sharp turn at Kingswood Junction into the connecting link between the Grand Union and Stratford upon Avon Canals.

Linking lock 20 at Kingswood Junction

Almost immediately a sense of miniature surrounds you – everything is small by comparison with the Grand Union – like turning off a motorway straight onto a country by-way. Under a railway bridge and the canal link splits – straight on to turn south on the Stratford Canal to, well Stratford and the Avon, turn right and up the first narrow lock of the day to head in the direction of King’s Norton, Edgbaston and Birmingham.

The Grand Union and Stratford Canals run parallel to each other for a short distance and the perennially short of money Stratford petitioned hard for a link to give it a route somewhere as it couldn’t yet afford to complete its line south. The Grand Union agreed, but only at the cost of a lock and two reservoirs to be built above the next lock so that the GU received water every time the locks were used. A parallel lock takes the Stratford Lock down to meet the ‘straight on’ link which was built later.

Barrel Roofed former lock cottage at Kingswood Junction

Kingswood is a delightful place with the canalscape being the focal point of the scattered community. A miniature maintenance yard, the locks, the unique barrel-roofed whitewashed cottages and a flurry of tiny bridges, split in the middle to allow the boat’s towrope to pass through add to a photogenic location.

Looking up the hill at Lapworth

We join the Stratford part way through the long drawn out Lapworth flight of locks with, including the linking lock, 19 to work through to attain the Birmingham summit level that stretches all the way from the top of the flight to Tipton. The first few we negotiate are spread around curves, but as you round the corner below Lock 14, a barrage of black & white balance beams stretch up ahead of you.

The flight is easy to work, the paddle gear being a delight after the big Grand Union locks. Just 4 or 5 turns of the windlass suffice to raise or lower the paddles rather than the 23 or so on the big locks. A sharp bend between locks 8 & 7 with an almost impossibly short intervening pound is a well-known place for boaters to encounter problems if they meet another boat there, but all was clear today.

Looking from lock 8 to the bend and lock 7



Looking back from lock 7, with one of the canal's famous split bridges

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally we reached the top lock. An elderly gentleman greeted us – Jeremy Scanlon, American canal lover who has made his home in this country, living with his English wife (herself the daughter of a canal carpenter) in the converted canal cottages below the top lock.

We had met Jeremy in 2004 when we moored next to him in Cambrian Wharf in Birmingham and have also seen him and his boat ‘Unicorn’ in Bancroft Basin in Stratford on several occasions. He is now Chairman of the Stratford upon Avon Canal Society and tries to greet boaters as they pass through the lock. We had to buy a copy of his second canal themed book telling his life of using ‘Unicorn’ as a hotel boat. Charming man.

The "right bug*er" - first lift bridge of the day

Through the top lock we could breathe a sigh of relief as there would be no more locks until the day we leave Birmingham. As the top lock is numbered 2, that might confuse some people, but all will be revealed tomorrow.

A short distance beyond the top lock is the first of the day’s lift bridges – a right bug*er according to Elaine who usually volunteers to work the non-electrified ones. A new mechanism has been installed and it is a real effort to move the windlass round once, let alone the 20 or so turns it takes to get the bridge open. Thankfully the second lift bridge, a short distance further on, is not so bad.

Hockley Heath was the first ‘terminus’ the Stratford Canal reached when the money ran out the first time. Here a small basin was created, and when building restarted a diminutive brick roving bridge carried the towpath over it. The basin remains, presumably as moorings for a shortish boat at The Wharf Tavern.

The canal now runs through some delightfully remote and well wooded country with further evidence of C&RT’s tree clearance clear to see. Sadly the remoteness doesn’t last long as the M42 roars into hearing, blasting over the canal on a massive and brutal concrete viaduct.

Thankfully its presence doesn’t last all that long, and by the time we had reached the visitor moorings and our usual overnight stop at Waring’s Green the din had disappeared.

Mooring at Waring's Green