The idea for this blogpost comes courtesy of Life After Football and Pub Curmudgeon - Life After Football has been attempting to cycle to Alrewas from near to Burton-on-Trent (with mixed success!) and has been visiting pubs that we've passed on our canal journeys, but never visited (for various reasons; usually timing).
Pub Curmudgeon suggested that a purely canal based pub crawl must be feasible, so I decided that for our most recent canal trip, I'd take a picture of every canalside pub that we passed...whether we went in or not. I didn't realise it was going to be this long when I started!
Day 1
GRAND UNION CANAL - Wigrams Turn to Warwick (Kate Boats)
We set off at about 10am on Wednesday 5th June 2019. By 11:25am we'd reached The Boat Inn, Stockton CV23 8HQ, but it was too early to stop.
We have stopped here before, but it was many years ago.
Next was The Blue Lias, Stockton CV47 8LD. It was now 12:25, but having just negotiated the main part of the Stockton flight of locks, it still wasn't time to stop!
As with The Boat, we've stopped here before, but quite a while ago.
We finally decided to stop at a regualr haunt of ours along this section, the Two Boats, Long Itchington CV47 9QZ at 13:00.
Whilst there's nothing wrong with either of the two previous pubs, the Two Boats just wins out as our favoured stopping point.
The village of Long Itchington boasts a good number of pubs including the Cuttle Inn, Long Itchington CV47 9QZ which sits directly opposite the Two Boats on the Grand Union Canal.
It is a place we've occasionally visited, but the Two Boats always wins out.
We left the Two Boats at about 15:00 and planned to get to Warwick for the evening. This meant passing more canalside boozers, the first a classic estate pub that we've never been in; The Fusilier, Leamington Spa CV31 1NJ.
By now it was 18:00, but still too early to stop. On the far side of Leamington are two pubs, on opposite sides of the canal which have been built in the last 20 years. First is The Waterside Inn, Leamington Spa CV31 3JZ which was originally called The Tiller Pin. We've never stopped here.
It was now 18:23 and as we passed under the A452 bridge, it was still 18:23 when I took this picture of The Moorings at Myton, Leamington Spa CV31 3NY.
This is a pub we have visited, once, but not on this occasion. We pressed on to warwick where we moored up at 19:10, spending the evening in various pubs in the town.
Day 2
GRAND UNION CANAL - Warwick (Kate Boats) to Kingswood Junction
STRATFORD CANAL - Kingswood Junction to Lapworth (Lock 14)
We set off again at about 09:30 and were passing by a classic canalside boozer that we, sadly, haven't visited for many years, The Cape of Good Hope, Warwick CV34 5DP
This view, from the second Cape Lock, was taken at 09:50, so way to early to stop.
Our next challenge was the Hatton Flight of locks which we completed and moored above the flight by 13:55. This gave us plenty of time to sample the delights of what is now a gastropub and not quite as canalside as it advertises!
It is quite a walk up the hill to the Hatton Arms, Hatton CV35 7JJ (formerly The Waterman), but we persevered for some good food and drink. This is a place we've visited on many occasions because, irrespective of whether you are going up or down the flight, the next pub is three hours away (at least).
After our obligatory (and customary) two-hour pit-stop we were back on the water heading for Lapworth, but there was one more boozer gastropub that we would pass by (although we have visited in the past).
It was 17:15 as we sailed by Tom o' the Wood, Rowington CV35 7DH. It isn't exactly on the canal bank, but a lot closer than the Hatton Arms!
Once we'd moored (at about 18:30) we visited The Boot Inn, Lapworth B96 6JU which isn't quite canalside either, but near enough.
We had one pint in the (very successful) gastropub that is The Boot and moved on to try our luck at a proper canalside pub (although not one that we'd pass by on this trip).
The Navigation, Lapworth B94 6NA is a pub we've visited on many occasions. It still is a proper pub, albeit with a large restaurant area, but it was nowhere near as busy as The Boot had been.
So, after just two days, we've passed twelve canalside pubs but only went into four of them.
Before I started this entry, I expected that there would be half this number of pubs, but I will continue the journey soon.
TO BE CONTINUED.....
TO BE CONTINUED.....
Great post! Love these ideas�� since blogging began I've been to the navigation, which was good and you should also try the black boy in knowle as that's a classic ���� boot used to be notorious on a Thursday as a pulling joint for people who are now my age bracket!!
ReplyDeleteBritain Beermat
We very rarely do the stretch of cut towards Knowle and Catherine-de-Barnes. Consequently, we've never stopped at the Black Boy.
DeleteI'd hoped that by doing this it would show that most of the pubs we passed by were at completely untenable times for drinking, but that isn't true! It has just shown me that we're more creatures of habit than I'd thought!