Canals around Coventry

Kaga, when you first came on here I did not know what to make of you. Your wealth of information is amazing, your way of putting things becomes a picture in the mind. When you pass over to the other side it is going to be quiet for a long time up there just listening. So I think there will be a queue to get in. Members first please.

Scrutiny, Thanks, just been round the block a few times, plus a different life style, and a very inquisitive kid.

We were a bit late with the canals. France had them long before us, same with the weaving and spinning. A long time ago I read the area the first canals were built in France, Simon de Montfort, the Earl of Leicester, and his Catholic band massacred hundreds of Christian monks. These monks were the first to tunnel for water, that gave us ideas for viaducts - aqueducts were just iron troughs. There's a mass of history in the canals, nearly all canals had their terminus in the heart of a city - the canals in London alone you wouldn't believe. A great number of boat people retired from the boats at the end of the 19th century and took to spinning and weaving. My Granny had both, and still used them when I was small. The thing that got me when I was small, kids were told if they fell in the cut, while holding a windlass not to let go, this heavy iron thing took them straight to the bottom - the mind boggles.

I've read that the Romans and ancient Greeks built canals (and locks). Some Roman canals enabled troops to be deployed quickly, a bit similar to the railways the British built in India.

Were they to join up with the aquaducks, flap?

Flapdoodle, you're right, but not the same quite the same thing. Venice is full of canals, but a narrowboat? Although I heard Prunella Scales did, not sure of that either. I wasn't around to ask the monks where they got the idea from, just read books. We know the Romans built channels, but not the English Channel. We have to give and take a little when it comes to history.

The Romans widened and partially straightened the River Witham all the way from the coast to Lincoln (or Lindum Colonia as they called it) and built a large inland port, now called Brayford Pool. A pretty impressive feat considering the technology (or lack of) available at the time.

New to this. I was born at The Old Crown, Lentons Lane in 1945. At the age of 4 (alone plus dog) I walked along the canal towards Bedworth. I can remember there was a public house just as you came up from the "cut" to Bedworth. I remember there being a market on at the time. My very worried mother sent out a search party for me and was found just returning to the "cut". I don't think it would have been safe to do so in this day and age. Does anyone remember the name of the pub?

Lizziebeth - The pub was called the New Inn but was known by the locals as 'Shaw's' because the Shaw family kept it. The pub and cottages stood at Bedworth Hill on the towpath side of the canal at the end of Coalpit Fields Rd and opposite to the Newdigate Canal Arm which was where the coal boats were loaded. Bedworth market is held in the centre of the town so was a fair walk from the canal. The pub and cottages were demolished a long time ago, well before I moved to Bedworth so I only know what has been recounted to me.

Lizziebeth, Yes Non-Local is right, but you really was a wanderer at 4, you would have passed the Navigation pub as well. Look I saw you one night in 49 when your Mother brought you to your father to kiss you goodnight in the big bar that fronted Parrots Grove, and that was a few weeks after he had questioned me about my age. I was also in there one night in 1984 along with some old school mates from Lentons Lane. small world.

The Oxford Canal, before engines arrived, was a beautiful, peaceful stretch of water, the banks not disturbed. In many places clear water where you would see perch, roach and bream - fishing competitions became very popular. It ran from Sutton Stop to Thrupp, a small village where it joined the River Cherwell near Oxford. My granny lived in Thrupp when she was a teenager. I spent many days there on holiday. The shimmering shadowy canal there held large reed beds - in late summer lengthman cut the reeds, laid them on the scythed grassy bank to dry in small mounds. We would get an old sweet bottle, fix a cloth top over it, then cut two hazel sticks from the hedge, one with a fork at the end. We would lift up the heaps of reeds with one stick like a lid, then plunge the other stick down on snakes before they could slither away, trapping them in the fork of the stick. We placed them in the sweet bottle - we would sell the snakes to a local man for about ten a penny. The sweet bottle would then be washed and later be filled with salted runner beans. We would walk or cycle back along the towpath to Banbury. Here was the oldest and biggest drydock on the Oxford Canal - it also had the oldest forge in the Midlands. We were held spellbound by the blacksmith, but it was the market that held the eye, the houses laid back from the road, the market cross in the middle, surrounded by colourful market stalls - truly historic. The stalls had everything you could want - spinning tops, yo-yos, giant wheels of liquorice to eat as you walked round, fruit and veg, clothes etc. Dad used to buy old coloured clothes for a few pennies - he took them home, washed them, cut them into six-inch strips, then with a metal hook sewed them into sackcloth and - hey presto! We had new rugs.

My great grandparents on my mother's side, Humphreys, had The Travellers Rest further up Bulkington Road from The Navi. I often swam in the Oxford Canal on summer days, it was usually at least lukewarm. The downside was that you would emerge orange coloured because the water had a lot of suspended clay. The stretch of Coventry Canal between Bell Green Road and Windmill Lane, especially the Stars, was my playground for most of my childhood. Swimming in the Coventry Canal was, of course, unthinkable.

Kaga - Lizziebeth's description of going up from the canal towpath to the pub would fit both the New Inn and The Navigation. The New Inn was up from the towpath, and to get to the Navigation you go up from the towpath, and over the bridge to the pub which is on the non-towpath side of the canal. The Navigation is still there as a very large private house and the Travellers Rest is also still there, it has just had a refurbishment.

Not local - The irony of this is Lizziebeth could have crossed the road, taken the path in Parrotts Grove, across a few fields and would have arrived at almost the same spot on the canal at Bedworth. Lizziebeth - The Crown stood back, not in line with Aldermans Green Road but in line with the house demolished in the blitz, not 200yds from you. The landlord at the time helped move the rubble to rescue, then invited the rescuers back to the pub for a stiff drink - wonder if it was your father?

Kaga - I did think the same thing, it would have been safer to walk across the fields rather than along the canal bank. Her walk had all the makings of a good pub crawl starting with a quick half in the Crown, on to the Elephant & Castle, then the Greyhound, the New Inn, and the Navigation. If you had the energy you could continue up into Bedworth.