Up and down the Ashby canal

The original canal was 31 miles long, but the last 8 miles have suffered from subsidence and are not open today. But 22 miles have been restored and are a popular canal today. The coal fields are at the now disused far end, so the navigable canal is completely rural throughout only skirting some small villages and the towns of Hinckley and Market Bosworth, a very pretty llittle market town.

As a side note, the canal is called Ashby-de-la-Zouch canal on maps. Am I the only one thinking of Adrian Mole when I hear that name?

Travelling along the Ashby canal

The first impression of the Ashby canal is the junction with the Coventry canal (Marston junction), which feels like threading a needle. The bridge is only as wide as the boat and there are another 10 metres or so beyond with the same width. I turned into it in quite windy conditions and it was very difficult to get the boat straight enough. In the end it was unavoidable to scrape the side a little bit.

As it was a there-and-back route, cruising the Ashby canal over 11 days felt a bit like a holiday from what is essentially a long holiday anyway. On this journey I did not progress toward my goal to go “North”, so I was even a bit impatient by the end to get back onto the main line, especially as I am dreading more closures in the future due to lack of water.

Here are some impressions of this beautiful canal. The high vegetation plus hedges and trees flanking the canal in many places means that views outside the very pretty canal are sometimes limited.

Snarestone tunnel

The Ashby canal also features a short tunnel near the end, about 250m long. It is as high and wide as the bridges, so I didn’t foresee any issues, but I had read that it gets lower towards the Northern end due to subsidence. This made me worry a little bit as realising that I am not going to fit through at the very end would mean reversing all the way back out.

As it happened that was not the issue. However, if you watch the video closely, you can see the arc illuminated by my lamp at the front getting smaller. This indicates that the roof gets lower. The illuminated roof where the camera is is not the reality. The back of the boat where I am filming from is pitch black. Fortunately as I was filming I noticed the arc getting smaller and put my hand above my head to see how much space there was. Not much at all! I ducked down and it was all fine, but it did give me a little fright!

Battle of Bosworth

The canal passes by one of the most important battlefields in English history, the site of the Battle of Bosworth, which ended the War of the Roses in 1485 with the death of Richard III and brought in the Tudor dynasty. The site has a visitor centre with a lot of information about the complicated family history of the Yorks and the Lancasters and everything you ever wanted to know about the battle. I learnt that every farmer in the land had to practice archery every Sunday from the age of 7 and when the call from their lord came they had to go to battle. No wonder that the English archers were famous. They had a lot of practice.

There is also a lovely trail around the whole site which is mainly fields and some wood today. However, the precise locations of actual camps and battles is not very clear. Archaelogists had actually searched for many years where the actual battlefield was. Recently they also discovered the remains of a Roman temple in the middle of it. Not that surprising as the site is only a few miles from Watling Street, the ancient Roman Road which was one of the main arteries of Roman Britain.

Battlefield Line heritage railway

There used to be a railway running between the villages on the Ashby canal and Nuneaton. The last trains along the whole line ran in the 1960s. Today there are are three stations Shackerstone – Market Bosworth – Shenton (for the battlefield visitor centre). Shackerstone station is beautifully restored with a Victorian tea room, a little museum and lots to see for railway enthusiasts. I am not a railway nerd, but there were lots of them about. I was hoping for a steam engine for the train, but that only gets an outing very rarely. My train had an ancient looking diesel engine. The train carriages are like something out of an Agatha Christie film. I travelled first class (of course) and they also have a dining car (sadly without the actual dining). It is very charming and well worth it to travel to and from the Battlefield centre if you are visiting that anyway.

Another strange encounter

I talked about meeting people who recognised me in the last post. This time it happened in a cafe in Market Bosworth. There was only one other couple there. The man said to me “you are from Willum aren’t you?” Weird – again! I said yes and he explained that I had passed them on their boat earlier in the day and that they remembered me from sharing a lock on the Thames years ago. How do people have a memory like that?? We had a very pleasant chat as boaters always have something to talk about.

Chaos at the junction

Finally it was time to leave the Ashby. As I knew that the junction to get back onto the Coventry canal was narrow and totally blind on both sides, my plan when coming out was to go slowly, toot my horn and then inch my way into the Coventry. Alas, as I was approaching the narrow bit I saw the bow of a boat appearing and stopping right in front of the junction. So they were obviously trying to turn in.

Finally I was determined to go no matter who else was outside. Fortunately there was a cyclist at the corner, who had watched the whole situation unfolding and was giving me hand signals to wait until the canal outside was clear. I was relieved to be back on the much wider Coventry canal after all this.