Harnser's Travels: Wilmcote Lock 42

Tuesday, 1 August 2023

Wilmcote Lock 42

The moorings last night were quite empty when we arrived abut filled up towards tea time and I had to pull back 10 foot to make room for a long hire boat to get in ahead of us.
This morning it wasn’t raining, the boat ahead had left for a night in Stratford and a few boats came past, we left at our normal 10 o’clock and the only boats we met were the two day boats from Wootton Wawen. The second one we had to wait while they went down lock 40, wind and then come back up to moor up for lunch on the lock landing, The Volockie seemed quite happy with this arrangement.
The first thing we passed was the Anglo Welsh boat yard at the end of the Wootton Wawen aqueduct, this crosses the A3400 road and is about twice as long as the one we crossed yesterday. Like the one yesterday the towpath is at the same level as the base of the trough. It can be seen clearly in this photograph.The gantry over the canal at the far end of the aqueduct is used by Anglo Welsh to lift boat engines etc., just hope you don’t want to come through on the day they are doing that.
One of the day boats was just leaving lock 39 going down as we approached and they didn’t bother closing the bottom gate when they left, it didn’t make any difference because when we left and closed it just swung back open.
After this we were on to Edstone Aqueduct, now this is much longer crossing a private road, twin railway tracks and a public road as well as a bit of grazing land. Again note the dropped towpath, unlike the Pontcysyllte aqueduct in Wales

This canal was “restored” by the National Trust and they didn’t seem to have the same eye for heritage when doing things as the have when working on their houses, but they got the canal open. On this lock there are vertical planks of wood let into the cast concrete.

Between the locks were a family of swans and the adult had a hole through the edge of its beak

I think this modification is post NT to stop boats hanging up on the brickwork as the lock empties.

Lots of the locks we have passed in the last few days need a bit of love and attention with paddles out of order and this one with a good flow under the cill.