Rugby to Newbold-on-Avon

It was rather nice to hear the overnight rain pounding on the cabin top, even if it did keep me awake! We just hope it also rained where the reservoirs are. We were in no hurry to set off, as we were not moving too far, so we waited for the rain to stop and then we set off. Not too far was an understatement really, 1.3miles which took all of 35minutes. We moored up before Bridge 50 at Newbold. With plenty of time before lunch we put our walking boots on, took our cameras and headed back down the towpath to Newbold Quarry Park.

The resident family of swans were giving us a great show of searching for food with tails up in the air.

After lunch we walked into Newbold, the church, St Botolph’s is very pretty.

The war memorial says it all really, it is always very sad to read the villager’s names who lost their lives, especially in the Great War, as so many of them were from the same family and probably brothers. Having returned to the boat Jo has discovered that the original canal course runs alongside the church, with the western portal of the original tunnel west of the church. We will have to return there over the weekend and have a further explore.

 

One project I have is to trace all the lost sections of the original North Oxford Canal, which were the long contour loops which were replaced when the Oxford Canal Company decided to remove these winding loops in the late 1820’s and built new straight sections to reduce the overall length of the canal by some 14 miles of the original 36 miles between Braunston and Hawkesbury, to reduce journey times in competition with the newer Grand Junction, Warwick & Napton and Warwick & Birmingham canals.

Some of these newer sections are quite obviously straight which is very unlike the Oxford canal. Another factor is the wider bridges that cross these newer sections of canal, some of which are wrought iron, as used in the early 1800’s, similar to those that Telford used when he built his newer Birmingham Canal.

Keith.