Mike Stevens' UK Inland Waterways Pages

TRIP REPORTS : THE YEARS BETWEEN BOATS

A WEEK ON THE BCN

Easter 1986

Part 1 : Brum to Lapworth, Knowle & Perry Barr

We'd first encountered the BCN in our old boat in 1978 (Read that trip report by clicking here: the Birmingham bit of the story starts three-quarters of the way through the first page). In our years between boats one or two of our hire-boat trips with our friends Ian and Peter had passed through the BCN, and Peter and I, but not Wendy and Ian, were keen to explore more of it. So Ian and Wendy told Peter and me to go off for a week and "get the BCN out of our system". So we decided to go at Easter, and booked a week on Brummagem Beaver, one of Brummagem Boats' Brumtugs which we'd decided would be the ideal vessel for the purpose.

We arrived at the Sherborne Street boatyard in central Birmingham and collected the provisions we'd ordered through the boatyard. We'd decided not to go in for the full range of drinks we carry for summer cruises, but just a couple of bottles of scotch and half-a-dozen of Bergerac Rouge (which latter we bought direct from the boatyard). We had a very pleasant reception from Alan (who appeared to be the boss) and Dave, who showed us over the boat. The boat was good. The cabin was basically a boatman's back cabin extended forward to make room for a cooking area and loo/shower compartment. Then there was a hold which, in the wintry conditions we experienced, we kept sheeted up. The whole boat was about 27 ft long. The weather was less appealing. It had been a cold winter, the cut had only recently thawed, and the weather forecast for our week was not promising.

King's Norton

We set off at 16:31, intending to go out of the BCN first, to Lapworth, and then come back into Brum via Knowle, which we'd never done. We reached King's Norton junction at 18:30 in a snow shower, passed onto the Stratford-on-Avon Canal and moored at Yardley Wood, bridge 3, at 19:21. We had a couple of pints at the Horse Shoe before dinner, which included jacket spuds cooked on the range.

	Lapworth locks

We started at 07:15 and had breakfast on the move, followed by a good road down the Lapworth flight. A lot of re-gating had been done since our last visit. One lock had been completely re-built & was awaiting completion of the lock-side surfacing. We ran out of coal for the stove and had to collect wood instead, most of which proved too big to go into the firebox. We stopped for a good lunch at the Boot Inn at 12:04, about an hour ahead of schedule.

In the afternoon we went through the branch onto the GU and headed north. We thought this part of the GU pretty boring. We went up Knowle, finding the locks & the snow both very heavy. The locks were as heavy as Hatton, but much stiffer. We moored at Catherine de Barnes Heath at 17:20, earlier then expected, so we had dinner before going for a beer at the Boat.

We went shopping at 07:30 (including for coal), and started boating at 08:00. We made a breakfast stop in wet weather at Acocks Green. We found Camp Hill locks in poor condition, Garrison rather better. We were delayed by neding several weed-hatch stops. We stopped at Saltley, bridge 106, and found a pub for a cheap & cheerful lunch above Garrison bottom lock.

At Salford junction we were relieved to see three Willow Wren 70-footers going a different way. We passed onto the Tame Valley Canal and had a good view of Spaghetti Junction from below.The pound between Perry Barr locks 11 & 12 was very low. We had two bad groundings, each accompanied by grot on the screw. The second time, opposite the Safe Harbour, this was an interior sprung cushion - probably from a car seat. Working in shifts because of the nearly-freezing water, we cleared part of the cushion off the screw by dark & settled down for a night aground in mid-canal. We couldn't even get ashore to the pub! (In retrospect: did the pub still exists then outside the out-of-date pages of Nicholson's?) So we decided to sit where we were overnight. We killed two bottles of the claret as well as finishing the Scotch.