Lock help and lock queues

Marston Junction to Great Haywood Junction

Marston Junction provides access to the Ashby Canal.Beyond the Junction the Coventry Canal weaves its way on towards Nuneaton, a north Warwickshire town with a population of about 89,000. From the canal it’s a place always known for its vast acreage of allotments.  Now there’s a new feature dominating the landscape, offices and warehousing on a gigantic scale.  Rhenus Logistics  is a global company concerned with supply chains, warehousing and transport. All looks quiet at Nuneaton at present – is the site operational yet…?  Onwards past more allotments and twee ornaments in back gardens , past the classic shape of a British Waterways yard at Hartshill  and a mile or so further on the waterside depot of the Rothen Group at Mancetter Wharf. Only the field of noisy sheep disturbed the peace that evening. Baaing sheep can become “white noise” that you can ignore – not so the next night and morning when a nearby cockerel in fine throat announced his presence constantly!  Atherstone (population about 10,000) was famous for its felt hat making. The former hat factory at the top of the locks still looks a sorry sight.  There’s a pretty flight of 11 locks down through the town and out into rural Warwickshire.  There are usually volunteers to help with the top few locks (“…unless there’s football on,” said one volunteer who had his own Saturday priorities)  and then there’s a stretch of mooring convenient for the town after Lock 5. From here it’s easy to browse in the market (artisan market on the last Saturday of each month),  to get a haircut (the Captain’s priority) and to do a supermarket shop. It’s convenient too for meeting extra lock crew.Along came the Academic and the Biologist, both last on board on the Nene in 2022. (Pictured in this post   )    There were surprise gifts, including Australian honey, Australian teabags and Tamtams. Atherstone’s canal was a complete secret to the Academic, whose father had been a GP in the town for many years.Lunch. Chat. Action. “We’re here to help,” was the consensus, so windlasses were issued and refresher lessons provided.    How different a narrow lock looks from the wide locks of the Great Ouse. On a sunny afternoon down the remaining 6 locks Cleddau went, assisted not by C&RT blue-shirted volunteers but by two great friends. In late July the Coventry Canal was providing a packed menu of visual delights: butterflies and dragonflies, roses and foxgloves, willow herb and purple strife…Boatwif was allowed to jump ship for an hour at Polesworth.  A walk across the park and a bridge over the River Anker takes you to Polesworth Abbey. In rising heat ten or so ponies and horses hogged the shade under trees.  The sturdy Norman arches of the Abbey always impress  as do the many art pieces (chalk on stiff paper?)  There’s a sensory garden behind the church, a beautifully tranquil place. A local notion that William Shakespeare was a pupil at the Polesworth School always intrigues too. Onward, past reminders of Warwickshire’s coal mining history. The colourful pit wheel at Pooley Country Park  is now part hidden by greenery  while tall trees have screened the large old spoil heap from view.“I was trying to catch a fish but instead I caught a rat…” a young boy, fishing rod in hand, called from the bank.If an Englishman’s house is his castle, then an English person’s canal-facing garden is a pride and joy.  At Tamworth you wonder if neighbours are competitive, further on you wonder at the difference between tacky and twee, proud and stylish. After Glascote Locks (two locks, one boat ahead) the canal continues, crosses the River Tame and at Fazeley Junction becomes the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. For a while the bridges have names rather than numbers. In the hot weather farmers’ fields were being irrigated, in one five minute period six harvesting vehicles (three in each direction) had hurtled past on a local road – and by the time the evening’s mooring just before Ball’s Bridge was reached the floating footballs score had reached 6. Distance between Fazeley Junction and Fradley Junction is about 11 miles. It’s a lock-free stretch, through charming Hopwas, past Hopwas Woods (Take Note of the Signs ) to Whittington where the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal becomes the Coventry Canal again. No matter, onwards, past gardens adorned by ornaments and structures   and sheds and shelters, onwards towards Fradley. Remember the noise of a Vulcan? The noise from the nearby A38 is almost as great…! And then the canal wends towards another junction at Fradley. There are new houses, their size out of scale with the narrow canal world...“Are you going north or south at the junction?” an approaching boater asked. “There are queues at the locks…”Would the queues have eased at the northbound locks once the water tank had been filled and the rubbish deposited (General Waste, Glass and Mixed Dry Recycling, thumbs up for that, C&RT) There was a hard left at the Junction, there were customers at The Swan   and more at the outdoor café.  Boats, permanent moorers, lined the bank up to Middle Lock. Three boats ahead were floating mid-stream waiting for a turn at the lock.   You try not to bash a boat as you wait alongside – you particularly try not to bash a fibre glass cruiser. As Cleddau crawled and crawled towards Middle Lock there was time for conversation with the owners enjoying the sun and the fun on the cruisers. “Oh yes, we see all types,” said the lady with a recognizably West Midlands accent, “and we get hit sometimes too.” Hmm, concentration needed.Eventually Boatwif could get off the boat to help the other boats through the Fradley locks bottleneck. Experiences were exchanged but top topic was the heinous crime of hire boaters tying up their boat to a water point and sauntering off to the pub!Slowly, slowly the boat approached the first of the four northbound Fradley Locks. At each one there was a queue – and at the fourth another example of a boat’s stern moored to the end of a lock landing (Heinous crime, number 2, according to the windlass-wielders!)An overnight mooring just past King’s Bromley Marina brought a surprise the following morning. The Captain’s cheery ‘Good morning’ to someone on the towpath brought no response. Outside was a police officer, eyes in search mode. Soon there was another officer, ears glued to a radio. Down on the field behind the hedge a police dog handler and dog were at work. Was there a successful outcome to the search? Who knows…   The Jam Butty was near Handsacre, attached of course to Wand’ring Bark.  The crew’s home made preserves are often praised. There were bizarre garden sightings  and then the Armitage Shanks sanitary ware factory.   There seem to be new buildings alongside now.  The strange figure near Spode House is still there. This boat name: who remembers what a florin was?!?  Was luck in at Rugeley for a shopping stop? It was and further along, where The Dancing Sheep boat is moored, more figures seemed to have appeared. “Where on earth do you get your mannequins from?” the Captain called out to the lady in the garden.“Ebay,” was her prompt and maybe obvious reply. The quest was on for a shady mooring, achieved near Wolseley Bridge. The towpath was wide enough and flat enough for an outdoor towpath dinner. Just feet from  the towpath the juvenile River Trent trickles past.  Mid-evening the Canada geese were called to order; they swam in convoy along the canal,  clambered up the bank behind, padded across the towpath   and plunged onto the river – this was a Wash Your Feathers Before Bedtime routine, presumably!Onwards the next day, still heading north. Here was Colwich Lock (known since 2008 as ‘the Physicist’s Lock’). Would there be a lock queue? There was a boat coming down in the lock, four boats in a queue behind. Cleddau was lucky, there were hands to help. See how the lock beam is being held together. On a bit further, a glimpse of Shugborough Hall in the distance   and a serious 4 boat queue to join at Great Haywood Lock… It’s happened before, Boatwif penned in the corner by the front offside gate, winding paddles for boat after boat. When Cleddau’s turn came the noble lady from Vida Nueva  hung about to offer help.Ahead was Great Haywood Junction - and hopefully a few hours of quiet respite… Marston Junction to Great Haywood Junction: 41.85 miles, 19 locks, 1 swing bridge2024 Totals: 266 miles, 10 tunnel passages, 146 locks, 8 swing bridges *2024 Monkton Moments* (Monkton Moment*- a reference to / recognition of Cleddau’s Pembrokeshire connections) – now 16 (“Haverfordwest!” called from a passing boater)Tudor Rose enquiries: 2Footballs floating in the cut: 6