Cruising on the Stratford Canal

The fine weather of the previous afternoon as we finished the Hatton Flight continued into the next morning. About half an hour from our mooring we found a nice fast water point at Turner's Green for a fill, then we continued on to Kingswood Junction where the Grand Union and Stratford Canals are joined by a 400m (approx) linking canal.

Cruising along the link towards the Stratford Canal

Seats and a picnic table along the linking canal

Turning left out of the link and into our first lock heading towards Stratford Upon Avon, the pic has  the pound in the background. It was quite busy when we arrived with a boat going out of the lock and another coming up and very quickly there was a queue behind us. It was nice to be in a narrow lock again after three months on the Grand Union Canal, they empty and fill rather quickly comparatively.

Traveling along the Stratford Canal you need to quickly become accustomed to the tight bridges, sometimes not even inches to spare. Note the split in the centre of the bridge for the rope to pass through from the days of horse drawn boats.

It wasn't only a few hours cruising on the Stratford before we reached our first stop, the moorings at Lowsonford near the Fleur De Lys Inn. Once moored up we were straight over to the pub for a late-ish lunch. This pub is famous for their magnificent pies made on site.

Not the first time we have cruised down this way, off the top of my head I think it's the fourth but I am certain the lock gear is getting tougher to use. We also ran into several locks that we struggled to get out of due to the gates not opening fully. We were warned about these! Nonetheless we carried on, meeting this nosy fellow along the way. At one stage I thought we were going to have an extra passenger.

Another common site along the Stratford is these rounded top lock keepers cottages.

As we continued on you can see by the photos that the weather was becoming less predictable and quite blowy too. It was especially noticeable once we headed out on to the 475ft long Edstone Aquaduct where it was difficult to get off the side of the iron tub because of the wind.

Looking back along the aquaduct

The aquaduct passes over the train line and a road, 28ft below and is suspended by thirteen brick peers.

The view down from the aquaduct

Showers continued off and on throughout the day but we were determined to finish the eleven lock Wilmcote Flight. When we did it was around four o'clock that we moored at the bottom of the flight with several other boats.

The next morning the sun was ablaze for our final thrust into Stratford. We knocked over the final five locks including this one (below). One of the most hated locks on the system, with its stumpy balance beam that does nothing to balance the 1400kg gate and its right angled pipe setup, it's a very difficult gate to open and close.

We finished our day nice and early mooring in the seven day moorings right outside The Red Lion pub. It was two days before our visitors were due so plenty of time to renew our friendship with one of our favourite places. Once our visitors arrived we spent another night next to the Red Lion before moving into Bancroft Basin for a few days. We wanted to give our visitors a new experience, being in the basin is like being in a fishbowl. Stratford is a very popular place and there are people everywhere including walking along the finger jetties peering into the windows of the boats or jumping onto the stern for photos. It can be disconcerting at times!

One thing we hadn't done before was take a ride on the Big Wheel where I managed to capture a couple of shots looking over Stratford and our mooring in Bancroft Basin and also the River Avon.

Bancroft Basin Stratford

Our last day with our visitors onboard I went and purchased a licence for the River Avon (£50/week or £60/fortnight), we purchased a fortnights licence in preparation for our trip down the Avon to Tewksbury starting tomorrow. The River Avon is managed by The Avon Navigation Trust, separate from the Canal and River Trust, so our standard boat licence doesn't cover this river. We headed out onto the river for a short run before mooring up on the river next to the open fields.

If you would like to read more about our trips to Stratford Upon Avon you can read about our 2017 trip here.