Canals around Coventry

Very impressed with the solar panels - you'll be happy you installed them. We put them on our roof about 3 years ago and our monthly bills are about $7.50 except when we sell excess kilowatts back to electric company. It only needs to be sunny not hot. Lots of luck on the next leg of your journey.

I saw more of the moon last night than I have of the sun today! Cloudy & rain most of the day. I do have plenty of roof space if I do need to get some more. But, if I do, I will make sure I'm near a road, to carry those two from the van and along the towpath to the boat, was a task I hadn't given any thought to or planned. They are not small items! The weather put me off moving today.

Hi all, As idyllic & romantic a life on our canals might appear, it's not everyone's cup of tea. Pam & I spent a lot of time during different seasons of the year, never really intending to sell up from dry land entirely, but cruising for considerable lengths of time. It would have meant putting our land home in the hands of a property manager & so on. I'm not trying to put anyone off. It's handy sometimes to see the reality of what is sometimes not seen. It's not all plain sailing. I've deliberately set the video to start past the first frightening scenes, but please start it at the beginning if you are ok with that. Happy sailing.

Picture parade.

I could sit at table 15 all day.

I'm very jealous of your lifestyle, 20A, Fifty years ago, my wife and I worked in Stafford, and lived in Great Haywood, where two canals meet. We had some interesting friends there who lived on a narrowboat. He was from the West Indies, and she was related somehow to Scottish royalty! What a glorious combination! They were a lovely couple - I wish we'd stayed in contact! If you ever bump into (not literally, I hope) folks like that, please say hello from me!

Lovely photos Philip. I had thoughts of going there to take some of my boat, but, wasn't too keen on the state of the canal between Longford and there. Hi JohnnieWalker. I have met some lovely folk during the last 2 months and made a few friends. I left the Coventry just after 7am this morning and back on to the Oxford Canal. In the lock at Sutton Stop:

That's nice of you to say that. Thank you. I was at the canal basin totally by chance, whereupon I partook of a Playwright cafe luncheon. Notice the playwright dialect. Lovely chicken & chips salad, plus cuppa for just less than £10. Very nice. Please take note, I could not see any landbased power points, so a boater was using his on-board generator to power his tools. Best wishes to you Sir.

Good afternoon, This may have been discussed before, but the lock at Sutton, is a stop lock. The join of the Oxford, with the Coventry Fazelely canal was meant to be seamless, but a stop lock was needed simply to deal with emergencies. Like when the canal breached, flooding Bishops Gate & Eagle street many years ago. A slight survey error meant that the Oxford canal was 6 inches higher than the Coventry, so the planned stop lock was built as a conventional boat lock. We get the origin of the location name "Sutton Stop" from that piece of history. Six inches might not sound a lot, but several of the bridges on the Coventry canal would have needed rebuilding in order to raise the level.

Did you know that originally two canals ran in parallel between Sutton Stop and Longford? Any ideas about how they passed under Grange Rd? Was the bridge bigger? Were there two bridges? Was it simply an extended footbridge?

bohica. There were 2 bridges on Grange Road. The Oxford bit (to the car park) was still there up to the early 70s. I was only just talking about it t'other week to another boater, I remember it being there and the long wooden railway bridge that went over both canals and the road.

Thank you 20A

The weather has turned a bit cold now: With ice on the canal: But, I am keeping warm:

What more could you want Manor House? May I ask, how do you manage Postage, do you have collection boxes? Do you develop regular neighbours / friends? I don't wish to appear nosy but I am genuinely curious and a little envious. Snow would be my main concern.

Hi Dreamtime. One of my sons has allowed me to use his address for all the legal stuff & for post. I also have a very kind brother who brings me bags of coal and takes me shopping every weekend, like we have done this morning. Snow...I can't wait and want lots of it! Mainly, for all the photographs I will take.