Mike Stevens' UK Inland Waterways Pages

TRIP REPORTS : THE YEARS BETWEEN BOATS

BIRMINGHAM & SHARPNESS

August 1987

Part 5 : Napton to Sneyd

We set off reasonably early (06:34) on a lovely morning with good birdsong. We stopped before Braunston Stop for some minor shopping (all that was possible there at the time : sic transit...! ). We also used the launderette, where there was a long queue and rumours that it was to close soon. We had a pub lunch at the Old Plough - at least that was (and is) still good. The weather turned close & thundery, then came on to rain, which lasted on & off for the rest of the day. In the afternoon we winded and headed up the Northern Oxford, ending the day's journey at 19:31 at Stretton Stop. I seem not to have taken any photos that day.

	Hawkesbury Junction

It was misty as we started at 05:53, (Wendy overslept!) then it cleared up with a beautiful sky. We saw our friends John & Hilda Bowles' nb Titania moored at the Elephant & Castle by Tusses bridge, but nobody appeared to be up. At Hawkesbury junction we stopped for water and then turned north on the Coventry Canal.

The footways of Atherstone locks, which had bothered us before, were now in very good nick. We stopped below lock 5 to remedy the deficiencies of the previous day's shopping & to find an apothecary for Ian's elbow We had a pub lunch - good food, nice barman, audible wallpaper and a very noisy woman. Later, at Glascote locks, we met some boats from Ian Goode's yard behaving very oddly. Later still they winded and passed us after we'd moored, so possibly they'd taken a wrong turning at Fazeley. We moored for the night past Tamworth aqueduct at 19:01.

Ian served us coffee in bed. Wendy was last up! Quite a reversal. We set off at 08:00 and at Fazeley junction Wendy had a bit of a coming-together with a bridge. We turned onto the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal and stopped for breakfast before Curdworth bottom lock. Between Curdworth & Minworth we saw lots of red campion & herb Robert, but there had been none at Shrewley. Does this mean that geology is destiny?

At Salford junction we joined the Tame Valley Canal instead of turning towards Aston and Farmer's Bridge. Peter's and my fascination with the BCN was beginning to rub off on the other two. We turned north on the Rushall Canal. The BCN so far had been decidedly mucky but on the whole well-maintained. The twin towpaths on the Tame Valley were very good. We stopped at 17:51 before Rushall bottom lock , at a pleasant mooring, surprisingly pretty with mixed boskage and red clover. Peter & I reckoned we were sufficiently ahead of schedule to be able to fit in a visit to the Black Country Museum.

Boating resumed at 07:03. We thought the Rushall flight very pretty and well-kept, apparently viewed kindly by the prosperous suburb which had grown up there. A sobering thought - will the survival of canals for leisure depend on the suburban gardener and the dog-walker, jealous to protect local amenities? We took on water at Longwood junction where the Rushall joins the Daw End Branch. The Branch is toad-flax territory with, of course, the ubiquitous willow-herb.

	Anglesey Basin (all three above) & Chasewater reservoir (left & right)

We passed through Catshill and Ogley junctions and reached Anglesey Basin, on the way to which the dominant flora are various kinds of heather. The basin was very weedy. We stopped for some sight-seeing. The area round the Basin is a nature reserve, very beautiful with numerous species of flowers, moths & butterflies. Local young anglers seemed surprised to see us tie up with our bows on the rim of the inflow from the reservoir.

We re-started and went back through Ogley and Catshill to Brownhills wharf for some shopping at the supermarket, which was good. The moorings there were in bad need of dredging. Continuing along the "Curly Wyrley" we needed lots of weed-hatch stops. We met an old boat across the cut with a man in the water trying to get a rope off the blade, as the boat was too trad to have a weed-hatch. He said "History is all very well in its place", We passed many beautiful heavy horses, mostly piebald.