Back to Lapworth

I really enjoyed my first visit to Lapworth last year, a lovely Warwickshire village where the Stratford and Grand Union Canals meet. I returned yesterday this time to walk the Stratford Canal back up in the Birmingham direction (i went the other direction last time).

My walk took in Lapworth Wharf, the Lapworth Lock Flight and made it as far as the cricket club. You can see my photos here. I plan to return to Lapworth later in the year and explore more of the Grand Union which i only briefly visited last time.

Royal Navy Historic Dockyard

The RN's Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth is where the famous HMS Victory and HMS Warrior are  on display and of course visiting this was a major part of my holiday in Portsmouth!

I was able to go aboard Victory (which personally i didn't like so much as everything was so low i had to stoop down everywhere!), Warrior and the WW1 monitor M33 which was my favourite. I was also able to see the current RN in the form of HMS Diamond which was easily visible from the dockyard. You can see my photos here, the dockyard is a great place to visit.

Back to Stratford (at last!)

There was a time, when i was doing my masters dissertation, i was visiting Stratford-upon-Avon nearly every week but since then my visits have become much less frequent in fact last year i only went to the town once. That was just over a year ago so it was high time i returned to the town as i did today.

I really should visit more often though it is getting harder to see things and do things i haven't done (many) times before. Today though i did cross the Avon using the road bridge which gave me a good view of the boatyard, oddly never been that way before. You can see my photos here.

London rails and boats

As well as the visit to Aldwych tube station, last weekend i was also able to visit a number of London's many stations and take a lot of photographs. I visited Victoria, Clapham Junction, Peckham Rye and London Bridge and you can see my photos here. If thats not enough i also took a few photos along the Thames Embankment and these can be seen here!

Banbury cakes

Being a fan of Eccles and Chorley cakes i thought it was high time i sampled the similar Banbury cake, especially with my roots in Oxfordshire (back 4 centuries blah blah). So i went to Banbury yesterday to get some! I didn't just go there for cakes of course. I also had a nice walk along the frozen towpath of the Oxford Canal and took some photographs in the station too. You can see my canal photographs here.

The cakes are very good by the way and can be ordered from Brown's own website. I think i'll just get some whenever i am in town, which is fairly often.

Back to Worcester

Last year i worked in Worcester for 6 months and have come to really love this beautiful and historic city so it was nice to visit again yesterday, for rail and canal photography natch.

One thing i never did do when i worked there was take a train to Worcester Shrub Hill which is a lovely grand old station though somewhat out of the way compared to Foregate Street which was the station i used when i worked in Worcester. I also walked along the Worcester & Birmingham Canal up to Diglis Basin. Many photos of course, of Shrub Hill here and of the canal and basin here.

Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal

The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal is not one i have walked along (yet) but it is one i regularly travel over when i visit the Severn Valley Railway as the line crosses the canal via the Falling Sands viaduct in Kidderminster. The canal is 46 miles long and was opened in the early 1770s. The canal links up with the river Severn at Stourport and the Trent & Mersey Canal at Great Haywood.

The canal's strength was that it linked up the Severn to the Trent and was a major North-South link through the West Midlands, much of the trade being coal. Traffic from Birmingham and the Black Country used the canal as part of the route up to the Mersey. Later canal openings such as the Worcester & Birmingham Canal did take away much of its trade however it remained profitable until the end of the 19th century which is more than could have been said for a lot of canals. It remained independent until canal nationalisation in 1948 with commercial coal traffic continuing up until then.

The Southern terminus of the canal is at Stourport which was built as an inland port to serve the new transport link to the Severn. Stourport was the only town in Britain built because of the canals.

Lapworth

I've been meaning to go to Lapworth for some time, having travelled through it a lot on the train. Well finally i stopped off at this North Warwickshire village at the weekend and what a lovely place it is too.

I went mainly for a canal walk, its where the Stratford and Grand Union Canals meet so there are plenty of locks, junctions and other waterway items of interest. You can see my canal photos here, plus some photos taken at the railway station too.

More Banbury

Today i paid another visit to Banbury, a place i do like to visit indeed. As usual i took a few photographs of narrowboats and railways. The Oxford Canal was particularly busy though this is peak season of course. You can see my photos here.

Walking Wootton Wawen

On a glorious Summer's day there is no better place to be in South Warwickshire, as i was on Saturday in the village of Wootton Wawen and walking along the Stratford Canal. Several years ago (2011 in fact) i walked up from Wilmcote past the Edstone Aqueduct as far as Changeline Footbridge 55 but turned back short of Wootton Wawen. In 2013 i walked up from Wootton Wawen as far as the Yarningale Aqueduct.

But there is a canal stretch South of the village i have not walked yet... well until now of course. I walked as far as Farm Bridge 56 and you can see the canal photos i took here and other photos from the lovely village here.

The London & Birmingham Canal

Looking at a modern canal map you might wonder why Birmingham and Coventry are not linked directly by a canal. You can get from city to city but only by a round-about way using the Birmingham & Fazeley and Coventry Canals. However in 1828 there indeed was a proposal which could have more directly linked the two cities.

The London & Birmingham Canal was an attempt to shorten the distance between the two cities. It was a proposed link from the Oxford Canal at Brinklow, passing through Coventry and then linking up to the Stratford Canal. According to a map of the proposed route (1), the canal would have been 18 miles long and as well as being a shorter distance for freight to travel between the two cities would also have reduced the number of locks that needed to be travelled through from 51 to 15!

This was an important consideration as the existing canal network was not designed with trade between Birmingham and Staffordshire to London in mind (2). The number of locks that needed to be navigated through, especially at the already overloaded Farmer's Bridge Locks between Birmingham city centre and Aston (3), was considered an impediment in trade and progress and could be greatly reduced by the new canal (4). The new canal could also be the same width as the Grand Junction Canal to allow for the transport of larger goods.

The map unfortunately does not say exactly where the new canal would have joined the Stratford however it would have linked up to the canal at it's summit (5) so somewhere before Lapworth. The new canal would have passed the Grand Junction (now Union) near Knowle (but not had a link to the canal though that would presumably have been added at a later stage) which perhaps indicates the link to the Stratford Canal would have been at somewhere such as Dickens Heath. (If you know exactly where please let me know!)

The proposed canal project was rejected by investors as it was found to have little substance behind it (6). What killed the project off were objections from a land owner whose land the canal would have traveled though (7). A number of other proposals for a canal along this route for example one by Thomas Telford were considered but all came to nothing, probably because the age of canal building was ending. By 1828 the canals were coming under competition from the railways which were the "sexy" new technology which people were desperate to invest in (and often lose their investment), it may have been that if the canal had been proposed a couple of decades earlier the land owners' objections could have been overcome.

One interesting byproduct of the project was that although it came to nothing it did benefit the Stratford Canal. At the time they were being charged high coal tolls by the Warwick Canal for through traffic but the project was sufficiently threatening to the Warwick Canal company to push them to reduce the coal tolls (8).

Its a shame the canal was not built as the canal would have been a very useful link-up between canals in that area of the midlands.

Stratford Canal near Kings Norton

1) Stratford Birthplace Trust Record Office (SBTRO) DR 18/16/3
2) Cubitt W., Description of a plan for a central union canal which will lessen the distance and expense of canal navigation between London and Birmingham, etc., 1832, p3
3) Hadfield C. and Norris J., Waterways to Stratford (Newton Abbott:David & Charles, 1968) p99
4) Telford T. Life of Telford v1 Issue 1838 p268
5) Hadfield & Norris p99
6) Ward J.R., The finance of canal building in Eighteenth-century England (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1974), p86
7) Telford p268
8) Hadfield & Norris p84

Walking the Aylesbury Arm

Its been ages since i last visited a new (to me) stretch of canal, in fact we need to go back all the way to last November and my visit to the Nottingham Canal. On Saturday however i visited Aylesbury for the first time and walked a good stretch of the Aylesbury Arm of the mighty Grand Union Canal.

A very nice stretch of canal it is too, very soon you are out of the town and into lovely countryside. Then you can have the somewhat surreal experience of being stared at by an entire herd of cows. You can see my photos here.

Yarningale Aqueduct

The Stratford-upon-Avon Canal has 3 aqueducts of which the Yarningale is the first (if you are heading to Stratford from the North, or the last if the other direction of course!) The very short Yarningale Aqueduct spans the Kingswood Brook near Claverdon and dates from the early 19th century. Yarningale itself is a hamlet of the Claverdon parish.

The original aqueduct was made of wood but it was washed away in 1834 during the flooding of the canal and the nearby Grand Union Canal. A new aqueduct was made from cast iron at Horseley Ironworks and this is the structure that remains today. Like the Edstone and Wootton Wawen aqueducts further down the canal the Yarningale Aqueduct is unusual in that the bottom of the towpath is level with the bottom of the canal.

Hertford Union Canal

The Hertford Union Canal is a short canal in East London which stretches from the Regent's Canal to the Lee Navigation. Like the Limehouse Cut the Hertford Union Canal is intended as a short-cut between the Thames and the Lee Navigation. It was opened in 1830 and later taken over to form part of the Grand Union Canal system.

The canal is completely straight throughout its 1.5km length though does have 3 locks. For much of its length the canal runs alongside Victoria Park. At its Lee Navigation end the canal junction is in view of the Olympic Stadium and Park.

Imperial Wharf and Chelsea Dock

I've spent a lot of time over the last couple of years exploring London's waterways, especially the Thames in Eastern London. On Friday i moved West and visited Imperial Wharf in Battersea as well as Chelsea Dock. This is similar to St Katharine Dock which i've visited a few times in the past, a nice little dock full of expensive yachts and river craft, though also a narrowboat! You can see the photos i took here.

Curdworth Tunnel

Curdworth, a small village in North Warwickshire, has the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal run by it. Part of the canal (just over 50m of it) runs underground through the Curdworth Tunnel. The tunnel is about 120m north east of the centre of the village and was built along with the rest of the canal in the late 18th century, being a fairly early canal tunnel.

The tunnel has a towpath running alongside the canal as well as brick ridges which originally would have been to help prevent horses slipping while pulling the canal barges. Curdworth itself dates from the 6th century and was originally settled by Anglians. Despite being only 8 miles from Birmingham and lying near to the motorway (and one day HS2) the village retains its rural charm.

Penarth Marina

Completing my photo journey through Cardiff, my photos taken at Penarth Marina on the other side of the bay. Very nice it was too, i wish i could have explored Penarth more but by the time i got there my feet were aching!

Cardiff

This Easter weekend i went down to Cardiff, the capital of Wales of course. I don't think i've ever been there before and what a treat i had there. A great city indeed and i spent a lot of time walking around the bay, around the castle and at the station (natch). You can see my general Cardiff photos here, my Cardiff Bay photos here and my Cardiff railway photos here (yes i took a lot of photos). I'll be certainly coming back to the city at some time in the not-too-distant future.

Aberystwyth Lifeboat Station

Aberystwyth Lifeboat Station was established in 1861 though a lifeboat had been supported in the town since 1843. In 1861 a branch of the RNLI was established and the first boat RNLB Evelyn Wood was launched for the first time. This was a ten oared self-righting lifeboat and was followed by seven other conventional all-weather lifeboats.

Since 1964 Aberystwyth has had inshore lifeboats only after the last conventional boat was withdrawn and indeed Aberystwyth was the first RNLI station to receive an inshore boat. These can travel in shallower water than conventional boats and thus are more useful in places where most call-outs might be to holidaymakers or boaters in trouble. The current lifeboat, which has been in service since 2008, is the Spirit of Friendship, an Atlantic 85. This has twin 115hp engines that gives it a top speed of 35 knots and carries a crew of 4, it is equipped with radar and direction finding VHF. The station also has a smaller Arancia A-78 rescue craft.

Aberystwyth can be a busy station, in 2014 the lifeboats were called out 41 times. Over the years the crews have been honoured for gallantry 13 times. The RNLI is a charity that could not exist without donations, please visit their website and support this vital service which has saved so many lives.

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.