Canals around Coventry

NormK, the hot water coming from the power station was much larger than a pipe, that's why I didn't answer the question, it was a five foot wide concrete chute that split in two under the towpath, 4-5 of us could lie in the concrete channel and let the warm water ripple over us before it even reached the towpath, we could then crawl through either of the channels and into the 'cut', the water bubbled up from a mushroom type of pipe in a concrete box, flowed through iron railings into the chute. The big and foolish thing we did was to swim under the narrow horse boats when they came along and come up the other side. Otherwise the only pipe I knew of was at the gas works.

Thank you Mr Simpson, I opted for Aldermans Green because it was more noticeable there, with people swimming and very good fishing in the warm water.

I'm led to believe this is Coventry canal.

Similar photo from 2012 showing the engine house at Sutton Stop

Midland Red The engine was called Lady Godiva. Would people refrain from calling them bargees, there were few barges on the canals, they were narrowboats and boat-people. On a night in August 1865 five boatmen stood at the bar in the Bird in Hand public house in Aldermans Green Road, there was Billy Phipps, Billy Linsell, Enoch Wood and two of the Simpson brothers, the landlord was a Simpson also. Around midnight they had had a good deal of beer, were all drunk but could walk, and all friendly. They staggered along Aldermans Green Road as far as the Mill Lane, then crossed over and scrambled over the stile into the field that led down to Wyken Pool (slough). Here they stumbled across the rickety wooden bridge and up the slope between blackthorn trees and gorse bushes (this just after midnight), through the gate, across another field, through the little tunnel under the railway and out alongside the basin of the Wyken Colliery where they all lived on narrowboats. They saw Billy Phipps, the eldest, into his boat, they all parted good friends, bade each other goodnight. But next morning there was no sign of Billy Phipps. The water was black with coal dust, the water was dragged, and the body of Billy Phipps brought to the surface - verdict, drowned. I once knew this path well, the thought of staggering along it at midnight - ugh.

Bird in Hand, Aldermans Green.

As far as I can find out my father was the last real boatman on the cut, born on a boat, lived and worked boats, and retired from Inland Waterways with a pension. The Simpson family owned a boatyard at Tusses Bridge. The Sephtons owned a boatyard at Sutton Stop. A Sephton girl married a Simpson boy, so between them, they had almost 95% of the run of the Coventry and Oxford canals' horseboat trade. Both families at some time or another also owned most of the pubs along the cut.

Have you seen this one Kaga?

Normk. No, it's a beauty, neither can I place it, do you have a place or date?

It's Tusses Bridge, Kaga, the rear of the pub is on the right, and what looks like a boatyard on the left.

NormK, it's the house on the left of the bridge that throws me, everything else fitted, but that house I can't place. If you stand on the bridge today the little road down to the cut was there as far back as I remember, but yes the boats on the left are on MY BOATYARD. Regards, Kaga

The building on the left also flummoxed me but my guess is that was just a dwelling house. Do you know how the bridge got its name? I cannot remember the widening of the road or the building of the new bridge. My father claimed that the new bridge was built on the truss design and was originally called Trusses Bridge.

LesMac, well the other thing that got me, was the bridge also seemed flat to the very humped back bridge I knew, but that could have looked more humped back because of the road and narrowness. It was always Tusses Bridge to me. I would almost think as it was on the boatyard it would have been the boat shop, selling all the gear needed for the horse drawn boats. I thought Tusses, that was from persons dealings or ownership, but Longford got its name from a ford, Foxford was smaller but got its name from a large fox in the area, they also built the Fox pub on the very corner of Grange Road, and even as a kid in the thirties I remember a weaving house at Jackers Road, and when Faulconbridge moved into the water mill it powered thirty looms. We do have a great lot of history in that area. I do remember the widening and the building of the new bridge, mainly because we had steamroller 'Bill' but that's another story.

I am beginning to doubt whether that is Tusses Bridge at all. I was driving past there today and noticed the gable end of the pub face on to the canal, but the old photo doesn't show it. I will go back soon and take a snap from the same spot.

Could we be looking at a reversed negative? If so, the real view would show the pub in the mist at the far side of the bridge on the LEFT of the photograph, and the building which is now the fishing tackle shop in the foreground at the LEFT of the picture. Of course I could be completely wrong.