Hopwas to Whittington - Coventry Canal

Bodnetts Farm Shop

Yesterday (Tuesday) we stayed put today and went to Bodnetts Farm Shop. We walked up on to the bridge and followed the lane up to the road.  It was a busy road but luckily there was a grass verge to walk on and it wasn't too far along the road.

Bodnetts Farm Shop

They sell mainly fruit and vegetables, mostly locally grown along with Gaytons bread which is made in Grendon, a village not far away and the usual jams, chutneys, bird food and a few meat products, pies, bacon, free range eggs at £2 a dozen and the lad behind the counter said they often sell poultry but didn't have any today.  It's a really nice place and we bought some veg, a huge fresh cauli for 99p, some English Victoria plums and some English Spartan apples.

We walked back to the boat and just chilled out as it was a drizzly damp day.

Passing The Tame Otter

Today we are on the move. The sun was shining this morning as we left our mooring and headed along the canal.  We passed the Tame Otter pub and the Red Lion pubs which are opposite each other on the canal at Hopwas just down from where we were moored.

Passing the Red Lion

Under Another Bridge

Very Narrow Here

We chugged on and the canal was quite narrow in parts with reeds overgrowing the canal.  It was busy today with a steady flow of boats coming the other way so we had to stop several times in the narrow bits to let them pass, we always stop now as most of them never seem to want to slow down or wait so we do now, it makes life easier!

Another Narrow Bit

Canal Marker

As we were approaching Whittington, we passed the marker which shows we were now back on the Coventry canal.  You also know by the bridges, as on the Birmingham and Fazeley stretch the bridges are named and on the Coventry canal they are numbered.

Numbered Bridges Now

We chugged under a few bridges and moored up in a lovely open spot on the outskirts of Whittington.

We had lunch then walked back down the canal and up into the village.  There is a Co-op, Post Office, Chinese and a couple of pubs.  We walked up to the church, St. Giles.

Inside St. Giles

It was built about the 13^th century using red sandstone quarried in Hopwas wood. it was open, so we went inside, very small but lovely just the same and had a really nice stained glass window commemorating the Millennium.

The Millemmium Window

There was a cache here, well we had to find some dates on one of the graves and that would give us the coordinates to find the cache.  The grave we were looking for was next to the grave of Thomas Spencer.  He was a founder of Marks & Spencer Ltd and the adjacent church hall is named after him.

St Giles Church

We found the graves okay and headed down the road to find the cache.  We looked for this one last time we were here but couldn't find it, so we were determined to find it today.  We had a good look and then read the clue again, the penny dropped and we found it.

We walked back up to the village and then back to the boat in glorious sunshine, it was such a lovely warm day today.

We are staying here tonight and also tomorrow, then moving on Friday to Fradley.

Moored at Whittington