Hopsford Aqueduct to Hawkesbury Junction (North Oxford Canal)

Steam train passing our boat

We stayed put yesterday (Thursday) and just went for a walk and picked some blackberries and then I made a pot of jam and kept some blackberries for a pie which I will make tomorrow.  Where we were moored, there was a railway line opposite and a man on the towpath told us a steam train was passing in about half an hour, so we waited around and saw it go by, but it was a bit disappointing as there was no steam billowing out and the driver didn't toot his horn!

Lovely Morning on the Canal

The sun was shining today for once and it was quite warm as we set off along the canal, we passed Ansty and then stopped for water.  

Passing Wyken Colliery Arm

We chugged on for a few miles past the new Wyken Colliery Arm which was built to replace the old one eaten up  by the M6 motorway which comes alongside the canal at this point; it is now used by the Coventry Cruising Club and then we were approaching Hawkesbury Junction and we moored in the visitor moorings before the stop lock.

Old Engine House

The Greyhound Pub

We had lunch, then walked up to the junction where the North Oxford Canal joins the Coventry Canal and there is a pub called The Greyhound on the junction.  We walked down the Coventry canal for a bit then went up the other way where there is a disused engine house.  The engine here used to pump water up into the canal from a well.  Its engine was installed in 1821, having been previously employed for nearly 100 years at Griff Colliery, a few miles up the canal towards Nuneaton.  The Newcomen-type atmospheric steam engine called “Lady Godwin” is now in Dartmouth Museum.  It ceased work in 1913.

We are staying here now for a couple of days, then heading down the Coventry canal to Coventry basin, we are looking forward to that as we haven’t been there before.

Moored at Hawkesbury Junction