Our Route


In July/August 2018 we walked from Liversedge in Yorkshire to Oxford, where possible, on canal towpaths.

The walk started on greenways in the Spen Valley until Ravensthorpe where we joined our first canal, the Calder and Hebble Navigation to Mirfield. In Mirfield we took a greenway to pick up the Huddersfield Broad Canal, after first getting slightly lost in the Colne Valley. We followed the Huddersfield Broad Canal into Huddersfield.

The next day we joined the Huddersfield Narrow Canal to the Standedge tunnel. As there is no footpath in the tunnel we walked over the Pennines, via the Wessenden Valley, to Diggle and the southern end of the tunnel. We followed the Huddersfield Narrow Canal to Ashton where we joined the Peak Forest Canal.

We followed the Peak Forest Canal to Marple where we turned off onto the Macclesfield Canal. We followed the Macclesfield Canal to Kidsgrove where we joined the Trent and Mersey Canal. Almost immediately we had to leave the Canal, as it entered the Harecastle Tunnel, and follow a modified version of the route taken by draught horses in the early days. We rejoined the towpath at the southern end of the tunnel.

We followed the Trent and Mersey Canal to Fradley where we joined the Coventry Canal which we followed to Fazeley Junction, where we joined the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal.

We should have left the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal where it passes under the M6 and joined the Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal, as we were going through Warwick. However we missed the junction. Even so I thought we could go into central Birmingham and then head East towards Solihull and our accommodation.

We could have corrected our first mistake at Aston Top Lock and turned East on the Digbeth Branch Canal but missed our turn and headed into Birmingham. We almost reached the centre before we realized this second mistake. However from a canal and engineering aspect, the walk into central Birmingham was really interesting. It was a rewarding, if somewhat tiring mistake.

We walked back to the Aston Top Lock and followed the Digbeth branch for a short way to the Grand Union Canal, which was soon joined by the Birmingham and Warwick Canal, which we should have taken in the first place.

We followed the Grand Union Canal all the way to Napton Junction. At Napton Junction we turned south on our final canal, the Oxford Canal, which we followed to its end in Oxford.

We started on Monday, July 16 and finished on Monday, August 13. We walked 248 miles. We travelled for 29 days, with 5 rest days, thus averaging about 10 miles per day on our walking days.


Tuesday 31 July 2018

Erdington to Aston Junction.

Shiel's travel agent (me) didn't plan today's walk with enough care. Ordinance Survey 1 in 50,000 maps are not sufficiently detailed for canal walks through Birmingham. Be warned! It helps to know what canal you're supposed to be following. As a result we went wrong, twice. The first one I was aware of, the second one I wasn't. As a result we finished walking 15 miles today. The good news is we saw some interesting bits of the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal entering Birmingham which we would have missed if we'd followed the correct route.

We got off early leaving the 'Rollason Wood Hotel' at 9:00am and it was all downhill to the canal which we reached in 20 minutes. It was cool, but sunny, and it had obviously rained quite heavily in the night judging by the size of puddles near the road.

The path initially gave no impression of being in a big city passing through green trees but that changed quickly as we went below an urban area in a massive concrete tunnel.




We passed beside the M6 and the traffic noise was quite unpleasant. It was under the M6 that we found the mostly, for you, illegible sign which I misunderstood and made the first mistake of the day.


I mistakenly thought we should keep on The Birmingham and Fazeley Canal, I was wrong. However I found out in about 15 minutes but carried on as it was an alternative route south and also marked on my map as a cycle/greenway.  It was very narrow to start with running through an aqueduct over the river Tame but soon widened again.
The surroundings were initially remarkably rural but soon became urban, and after about one hour on the canal, when we were passing a lock climbing into Bimingham, quite industrial.


Twenty minutes and many lock later we arrived at the bridge shown below. It switched the towpath from the LHS to the RHS of the canal. We went across it. That was our mistake. We should have turned left down the Digbeth branch canal. We were at Aston Junction.

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