Whilton Locks to Lower Shuckburgh
Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 15th July 2018
10 miles of walking (4.5 hours), 9.5 miles progress on Grand Union Canal Walk
For more photos of this walk, click here.
Today's walk was a bit different. We'd started our more purposeful walking along the Grand Union Canal as something to do on short Sunday afternoons through the cold, wet winter. Then, in the middle of a heat wave and when we hadn't had any rain for weeks on end, we ended up with a two-night booking at the Northampton West Premier Inn, which provided an opportunity to do a slightly longer walk along the canal. We'd booked the two nights because I was due to be singing in a Newport Pagnell Singers concert on the Saturday evening (I didn't sing in the end but we still went to, and enjoyed, the concert). We booked at Northampton West because our usual Premier Inns in Milton Keynes and Bedford were either fully booked or ridiculously expensive for this particular Saturday night, but also with the Grand Union Canal Walk in mind.
Because of the heat, we didn't overdo the length of the walk and aimed to be done by around lunchtime, so we set off quite early. Even from this Premier Inn, we had a 30 minute drive to our planned end point, in a convenient lay-by close to the canal (and the Sewage Works...) at Lower Shuckburgh (SP491628). To our surprise, we'd crossed the county boundary from Northamptonshire to Warwickshire. We left my car here and drove back in Richard's car, by way of Daventry, to the same layby that we'd used last time we were here, near the A5 and Whilton Locks (SP616643). Last time we were here Richard struggled to change the battery in one of his hearing aids because his fingers were so cold. Today the problem was a broken shoe-lace, but no problems with cold fingers!
We walked back to the canal and continued to climb up by Whilton Locks, passing one which had water pouring over the lock gates. Although we were initially very close to the M1 and the West Coast Main Line (we were close to Watford Gap) we didn't see any trains until we were back in the car at the end of the walk, and the noise from the motorway was not too problematic.There was not initially much activity either on or by the canal, but it got busier as the morning progressed and we got closer to Braunston. We also had the company of a duck with ducklings then, at Norton Junction (where the Leicester Arm of the Grand Union Canal parts company with the route we were following) there was a family of two swans and six cygnets. The swans headed around the junction into the Leicester Arm and made straight for a nearby narrowboat, where at least one of the people on board announced loudly that she doesn't like swans.
We headed almost due west and eventually reached the eastern end of the Braunston Tunnel. We visited one end or other of the earlier Blisworth Tunnel on several occasions, but we had not managed to see a boat heading onto or out of the tunnel. Today, was that noise a boat heading towards us through the tunnel? Was that light coming from it? The answer to both of those questions turned out to be "yes" and we didn't have to wait too long before we first heard the conversation of the couple on board and then watched the boat emerged.
We then set out to climb over the hill which the tunnel goes through. Helpfully there was a clear track or footpath all the way, but walking without the canal by our side made a pleasant change. We passed the chimney from one of the ventilation shafts from the tunnel almost directly below us, and shortly before the top we sat down in the shade to re-apply suncream, change my damp socks and ring our daughter Helen. Then we descended, with good views ahead of us to Braunston Church. We were soon at the other end of the tunnel, with the added bonus of two boats just heading into the tunnel.
Braunston was quite busy, with queues of narrowboats building up for the locks. There are boat-repairing yards here, plus big marinas (which we couldn't photograph because they're to the south of the canal so were directly into the sun). More usefully, given the weather, there was a shop selling ice lollies! The bridges across canals are numbered and as we'd walked along the Grand Union Canal the numbers had been going down; we started at Bridge 15 today and now we passed Bridge 1. What next?
Well, the what next was another junction where we crossed an attractive double bridge then double backed on ourselves so as to turn left onto a five mile section shared with the Oxford Canal..and we were suddenly at Bridge 91, with the numbers increasing. The character of this section is quite different, with no locks; instead the canal twists and turns as it follows the contours (avoiding the higher ground to the south) leading to some near misses when boats were unable to see what was coming in the opposite direction. The tow path was quite overgrown in places; unfortunately it was also in full sun most of the time, whereas we'd been able to walk in the shade for much of the walk to Braunston.
We stopped for an early lunch in the shade of a disused railway line, watching the boats go past and also, nearby, watching crops being harvested and then the hay being bailed. We passed and were passed by some boats with interesting names: "Mustn't Grumble" (with a lovely small child asleep in a life jacket) attracted a lot of interest from other boat-owners but it was "Pooh Sticks" that attracted our attention, since Richard was brought up in the East Sussex village of Hartfield, home of Pooh Sticks Bridge. It turns out that the boat had been "found" in the garden of a bungalow in the Hartfield area; goodness knows why, as there are no canals in the area.
We reached Bridge 104, within sight of Lower Shuckburgh Church, and we left the canal here. We returned to the Premier Inn and Richard popped out to do some food shopping, then we went out again, this time to Canons Ashby, a delightful Elizabethan Manor House which feels very much like a family home, and the adjacent Priory Church.