The Coventry Canal

The Coventry Canal is a 38 mile long canal that stretches from Fradley Junction near Lichfield, where it is connected to the Trent & Mersey Canal, to Coventry.

The canal terminates at Coventry basin just North of the city centre though before that there are connections to the Lichfield (originally the Wyrley & Essington), Ashby, Birmingham & Fazeley and Oxford canals along the way. Work on the canal began in 1868 with Coventry Basin opened the following year. Construction was rapid though of a high standard and the canal reached Atherstone within a year. However financial troubles began to dog the project and the final connection to the Trent and Mersey was not completed until 1789.

One complication with the Coventry Canal is that while in reality it is a continuous stretch of waterway some maps treat it as two separate sections connected by part of the Birmingham & Fazeley canal. This confusion dates from the days of private ownership of the canals, but now the canals are all owned by British Waterways the canal should really be treated as it physically is.