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, 7 August 2018

Cropredy to Banbury.

We left the hotel about 9.20am and were soon walking beside the canal. It was very busy, lots and lots of boats moored beside the towpath, waiting for the music festival starting Thursday. Lots of places where people breakfasting on the towpath almost blocked the way or their dogs did. It was a very festive atmosphere. It's only Tuesday am and the moored boats almost stretched to the first lock, 1 mile from Cropredy!




Although it was a hot day, you can see from the photographs above that the vegetation at the side of the towpath protected us from the sun most of the time. Before we reached the second lock of the day noise from the M40 became obvious and was quite intrusive by the time we passed underneath it.


Not much later we were starting to enter the outer urban areas of Banbury but there were still ducks on the towpath.
Just after midday we reached the locks in the centre and an interesting tilt pedestrian bridge. 

It was about a mile from the canal, uphill, to get to our B&B, 'The Lismore Hotel.' We arrived  three hours and twenty minutes after leaving Cropredy, having stopped for 'Frostinos' at Costa Coffee. It was a short walk today only 9.7km.


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)