Day 92 - Coventry Canal to Whittington

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0 locks, 411 in total.







A little background to the Coventry Canal as there's not much else of interest today. The plan was for the canal to run from Coventry to Fradley Junction, where it would join up with the Trent & Mersey. Work started at the Coventry end, as far as a colliery which would pay tolls to the canal board and reduce the cost of coal for Coventry inhabitants. Then the money for finishing the canal ran out. So the T & M started work on a southwards link from Fradley to Whittington and the section from Whittington to Fazeley Junction was undertaken by the Birmingham and Fazeley company, extending their existing canal northwards from Fazeley Junction; the planned Coventry Canal was effectively split into three ownerships. Eventually the top section was bought back by Coventry from the T & M, making it possibly the only split canal in the country. We are moored at Whittington by the marker stone denoting the change from Coventry to B'ham & Fazeley. Hope this makes some sense to you.







We stopped for diesel and water at Streethay Wharf – another thriving place, probably because they do not hire out boats. It was a hive of activity. We were breasted up at the jetty with a boat we'd met several times before - they were filling up before mooring as this was their home base. The canal was quite narrow here and the pair of us certainly took up most of the width – there was just room for another boat to go past but the gusty wind made it harder than it should have been. When it was our turn for filling we just held our bow and stern lines loosely from the jetty and the other boat slipped out easily.







At one canalside estate there was a rag-and-bone lorry going round the roads signifying his presence by playing a bugle, badly, - it was different! Later on we ran right alongside a busy dual-carriageway for half a mile – it was bliss to get away from it.







There will be no more updates until Sunday evening as we are meeting up with children and grandchildren tomorrow for a couple of days. I hope you all have an equally enjoyable weekend planned.

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Photos

Part of a Victorian Gothic pumping station...
...the rest was hidden behind trees.

Foam mattress ....
... luckily we were given warning by a passing boater.

Scumbling?
I just had to ask what that meant. It is an old boat trick to make the living quarters of the old working boats look as though they're made of good quality oak, rather than pine or worse. First paint your cheap wood a pale yellow and then sand it smooth. Then paint with scumbling oil and comb it into a wood grain effect. When completely dry this is varnished. Inside a boat it can last 20 years or so but the awful varnish available these days means that it will need re-doing every year on exterior woodwork.

The Wyrley & Essington Canal.
No longer navigable and just used as moorings for Lichfield Cruising Club.

We're moored on a slight embankment.
These houses and gardens are several feet below us on one side. On the other is a brook, also lower than us. It seems strange to build in such a potentially wet area.

Whittington.
There were a pair of apparently very old houses but we still can't decide if they were genuine as they had garages that also had the eneven brickwork - a puzzle.

Comments

[Salli]

Happy Anniversary
Dear Helen and John. Have a lovely weekend with the family. All the best, Salli and Paul x

[Dunlin]

Anniversary weekend...
Thank you very much Salli - we did!