Braunston canal walk

Retrace your steps off the bridge the way you came and walk round under the bridge, noting the plaque commemorating the Brays, one of the boating families who worked on the last regular coal traffic from Warwickshire to London, operated by Blue Line. Continue along the old Oxford Canal line towards the wet dock, where on the right hand wall you will find a plaque giving a summary of the Nurser family’s involvement. Cross the wet dock entrance on the metal lift bridge and continue round across a similar bridge over the entrance to the first of two dry docks. Turn right and walk between the two docks; the one on your left dates from around 1800.

Follow the edge of the marina, with the houses on your right, to join the road at the end of the houses, close to a plaque remembering Jim and Doris Collins, former working boaters, mounted close to where Nibbits Lane crossed the GJC’s Braunston Branch. In front of you will be a cattle grid. Turn left onto Nibbits Lane (a surfaced footpath), cross a bridge over the link between the marina basins and go down to the former GJC at Butcher’s Bridge (Bridge 1). Turn right along the towpath and follow it towards Braunston Bottom Lock, crossing the ‘ladder’ bridge en route. The loop of the GJC’s Braunston Branch originally re-joined the main line at around this point.

The marina basins on your right were originally reservoirs, totally separate from the canals. When emptying Braunston Bottom Lock, water was drawn off into the reservoirs through special side paddles and the leat which can be seen on the right of the towpath. This allowed the GJC to retain its water and to pump it back up the locks, without losing any to the Oxford Canal - water was a precious commodity for the canal companies. The original pumping station was up the hill to your right but was replaced in 1897 by the building with a large chimney which you can’t miss.

This housed a Gwynne’s centrifugal steam pump but back-pumping is now carried out when required by submersible electric pumps under the covers in the towpath just below the bridge and the former pumphouse is used as a workshop.

Northampton Branch

A canal walk around Braunston 4 miles - about 2 hours

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Key canal canal (disused)

The area around Bottom Lock was a hive of industry in commercial carrying days.

The building now housing Union Canal Carriers was an oil store, while the boatyard opposite was used as a base by Pickfords, the GJC, Fellows Morton and Clayton and latterly Willow Wren carrying companies. Alongside the Bottom Lock is the former GJC gauging dock and several company houses.

Continue along the towpath, past the Bottom Lock and Lock no. 2, past the entry of Bragborough Stream on the left, to the Admiral Nelson by Lock no. 3. This former farm building predates the canal but is now a well known canal pub . From the Nelson, return via the road (Dark Lane), which takes you round a sharp right hand bend above Bottom Lock to a triangular junction at the top of the hill. Turn left onto Welton Road and follow this for 200m to reach your starting point at The Green.

For more information go to www.waterways.org.uk/northampton 8

route of walk

Starting at The Green in Braunston the first part of our walk takes us along the High Street, which dates from long before the canals ever came onto the scene. The village is situated on a ridge between the steep-sided valley of the Bragborough stream to the south and Bandow’s Brook to the north. It is referred to as Brandestone in the Domesday Book in 1086 and there are historical references to the village as far back as 956AD. The village continued its rural way of life for centuries, prospering from the wool trade, until the coming of the turnpike road, followed by the canals, brought an additional role as a transport and transhipment hub.

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At about the same time as the arrival of the first canal, the passing of the Braunston (Northamptonshire) Inclosure Act in 1775 wreaked changes which for most inhabitants were probably just as significant as the coming of the canals. The great common lands of Brownsom, Tippett and Churchill were enclosed and individual cottagers became tenants or employees, often with reduced living standards. th

Braunston expanded rapidly in the early 19 century, partly due to employment provided by the canals. From 179 houses and 909 people in 1801 it grew to 287 houses and 1380 people in 1831, representing 298 families of which only 86 were by then supported directly by agriculture. In 1851, 60 of the 284 inhabited dwellings in Braunston were occupied by canal workers. By 2011 the population was 1759.

The High Street We start our walk outside the Village Hall (a ‘National School’ from 1846-1968).

With our backs to the hall, on our right is The Wheatsheaf, echoing the village’s agricultural origins, and the former telegraph office at 4 The Green, where the name Pebody can still be seen above the door. Sarah Pebody ran the office from 1874 for 30 years. As was common on the High Street, the house has a well in the kitchen.

To the far left, a short distance along Welton Road, can be seen the modern development of Eastfields, which occupies a former glue factory site. Other houses th along this side and dating from the 17 century include Dolphin Cottage, formerly the Dolphin Inn, the next-door Jetty Fields House with its barn, a merchant’s house dating from 1647, and Ash Tree House with its mullioned windows.

Leave the Village Hall and walk along the High Street (heading west) and you will th see a great variety of architecture, dating from the 15 century to the present day.

Opposite Ash Tree House, the terrace of Policeman’s Cottages, locally known as Teapot Row, was built from bricks manufactured in the local brickworks by the canal, as was The Old Forge, a little way along on the left. Many houses along here were previously thatched (as indicated by the steep pitch of many of the roofs).

Along this stretch are more former pubs or ale houses, including the Maltster’s at number 11 on the left and the Dog and Gun at number 32 on the right, which closed as a pub in 1971. Next to the latter, High Cross House was a Cottage Home for Children from 1901-34, providing accommodation for 20 pauper children.

The pavement on your right is raised, reputedly to help nuns travelling between convents at Banbury and Nuneaton to avoid the mud of the unmade road. The blue brick paving was added in the mid 1800s at the expense of the local rector Reverend A B Clough. A wayside cross, marking the route, originally stood at the top of Cross Lane, on the left, but was broken up in 1780 and used to repair the road! The village pump also used to add to the obstructions out in the road at this point!

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In common with other sections straightened in the 1830s, the channel across Puddle Banks was lined along the edges with flat stones sloping at about 45º, ideal for preventing erosion but not so good for mooring, as the stones hold most boats a little way out from the bank. The short stretch of piled bank indicates the place where a stray bomb, presumably intended for Coventry, breached the canal in 1940.

Approaching the ‘new’ junction at Braunston Turn, cross the canal at Bridge 95, a ‘roving’ bridge designed to allow a boat horse to cross without unhitching the towline.

This unusual example has a separate accommodation bridge in the same structure.

At the junction spanned by elegant iron bridges built at Horseley Ironworks (near Tipton in the Black Country), turn right and follow the towpath past the Boathouse pub, under the A45, past a sanitary station to the Stop House on your right. The Boatman was originally the New Castle, after the licence was transferred from the th Castle Inn you saw earlier, in the mid 20 century. Since then it has been the Rose and Castle, the Boatman and the Mill House, before acquiring its current name.

The Grand Junction Canal After 1834 this section of canal became the Braunston Branch of the Oxford Canal and a stop lock was built where the Grand Junction Canal (GJC) had first made a link with the Oxford Canal in 1796 (although Blisworth Tunnel on the route to London was not completed until 1805). The GJC provided a much improved link to London compared with the Oxford Canal and in 1929 became part of the extensive Grand Union Canal system. The stop lock was originally a narrow lock but was eliminated when the canal route to Birmingham was widened in the 1930s.

Go past the Stop House, which housed the toll collector, and up onto another iron bridge. From here, you can see the original line of the Oxford Canal ending in a covered wet dock. This stub end, already the location of Braunston Wharf, became a boatyard operated by the Nurser family for 65 years. To the left is a branch that now provides access to the marina. Originally this was the GJC Braunston Branch, leading to a warehouse where the new houses behind the marina now stand. The branch was later extended back towards the GJC to form a loop but was entirely independent of the reservoirs which are now incorporated into Braunston Marina.

In 1957 operations at the wharf were taken over by Michael Streat, trading as Blue Line, which operated coal boats until 1970 but also started the development of a leisure boating industry in Braunston. The nascent marina was then taken over by Ladyline in 1970 but by 1988 was in the hands of the receiver. Tim Coghlan, the present owner, took over and has since restored many of the historic buildings. The Brindley Quays housing development was completed in 1994 and the marina was extended in 2003. It now accommodates 270 boats and hosts an annual historic boat rally which attracts boats from all across the system.

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Through the 18 century the Oxford Canal had become highly successful, with its northern section proving a link between the Warwickshire Coalfield and London but, as with the other canals, railway competition started to rear its head by the 1830s and its circuitous line was becoming a severe competitive disadvantage. The canal company called in Sir Marc Brunel (father of Isambard Kingdom of railway fame) who recommended shortening the route by building cuttings and embankments to cut off the great contour loops. Over 22km (13½miles) had been cut from the original 66km (41 miles) between Napton and Coventry by 1834.

Meanwhile the turnpike had been straightened and improved by Thomas Telford in 1822 but was still out-competed by the railways, with the sixteen regular horsedrawn coaches a day in 1830 reduced to five by 1841 and none by 1847.

Returning to Ivy Bridge, we now descend via the steps on its west side to the canal towpath and pass under the bridge, heading back towards Braunston, again crossing the old Great Central Railway route at the dismantled ‘Pink Floyd’ bridge.

We soon find we are on top of the high embankment known as Puddle Banks, by which the Oxford Canal now crosses the Leam Valley in a straight line, this work alone cutting two miles off the original route. Part way across the valley, steps to the left allow a view of the substantial three-arched aqueduct over the River Leam.

Canals in Braunston after Grand Junction Canal opening and Oxford Canal straightening

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Braunston

Oxford Canal

Dry dock Stop

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Oxford Canal 1834 route (Puddle Banks) m Strea ugh boro Brag

Wharf

Former Oxford Canal

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GJC Braunston Branch

1805 Engine houses

Grand Junction Canal

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Nelson Inn

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The top of Cross Lane was always the ‘shopping centre’ of the village, although some of the original shops and the Cross Guns pub were replaced by the modern village stores in the early 1970s. However, the butcher’s at the corner of Cross Lane has been there for many years, formerly under the name of Hancock Ringrose, the three-storey former Co-op shop is prominent next to High Cross House and the Cake Slice has had a variety of former uses, including grocer, laundrette, children’s clothes exchange, bric-a-brac shop, bookshop, tea shop and gift shop.

There were further shops and pubs down Cross Lane, which led to the canal and was where many boatmen lived. The crowded and insanitary conditions there were the scene of traumatic events in November 1834 when cholera was introduced to the village, probably via a canal boat. By the end of the outbreak 70 people had been infected and 19 had died. In 1939 the inhabitants were moved to new council houses in the village and the boatmen’s cottages were to be demolished but World War II intervened and they were used to house evacuees from Shoreditch in London. However, the area has since been cleared and little trace remains.

Continue west along the High Street and look out for the Tudor House on the left, th dating from the 15 century, and on the right the former Old Harrow Inn, the old bakery still with its Hovis sign and the Old Plough Inn, which dates originally from 1672. Opposite was a Methodist chapel, closed in 1972 and now used residentially. th

Several of the large houses on the left were farmhouses of 17 century origin and Checkley Close is recorded as having had a vineyard. On the right, Orchard House was the village garage. The mill dates from 1805 but ceased milling about 1900 and subsequently lost its top storey when it was converted to a dwelling in the 1920s.

At the end of the High Street is the church, with its great spire visible for miles th around - the ‘cathedral of the canals’. It was rebuilt in 1849 from the previous 14 century church, which itself had replaced a Norman church. The graves in the churchyard include those with the names of many well known boating families.

On your left you will see the former rectory, Merry Hill House, built in a grand style in 1839 by Reverend Clough for his marriage to the daughter of Mr Lamb of nearby Bragborough Hall, so that he could maintain her in the style to which she was accustomed. This reflects the high value of the living enjoyed by the rectors of Braunston. After 1775 the rector was relieved of the duty to provide a stud bull and a boar for the use of the village!

Beyond this is The Manor, a former farmhouse dating from 1653.

Turnpike - Telford's 1822 route

At the road junction by the church and The Manor, bear left through a gate and down the surfaced footpath to the A45 road (the old turnpike). In the field on the far side of the A45 can be glimpsed the winding course of the old Oxford Canal line.

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The turnpike and the Oxford Canal As trade between the developing manufacturing areas of the Midlands and London grew and colonisation of America and Ireland gave a new importance to west coast ports such as Liverpool, the old route to the north and west via the Roman road of Watling Street became less important north of Weedon, to be replaced by a route close to the line of today’s A45 skirting the village of Braunston. This ‘Chester Road’ was one of the early roads to be handed over to trustees for repair under an Act of 1706 which set up the Old Stratford to Dunchurch Turnpike Trust.

Oxford Canal original route

Oxford Canal

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Braunston

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Bragbo

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Aqueduct Wharf

Wolfhamcote

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Oxford Canal

Tunnel

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Oxford Canal

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Some years later, in 1774, the Oxford Canal arrived, crossing the turnpike at Braunston, on its way from the north Warwickshire coalfield and the growing town of Coventry to Banbury and later to Oxford. It was this connection with the turnpike that made Braunston Wharf more important than a typical village wharf handling local coal, lime and agricultural goods. Here coal and roadstone brought from the north by canal were transhipped to road transport for regional distribution and manufactured goods were taken onward to London by road, which was quicker than using the very uncertain Thames navigation from Oxford. This set Braunston on the way to becoming a key hub in the narrow canal system.

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We now walk westwards, across the Leam valley, with the remains of the former fortified settlement of Braunstonbury marked by mounds in the field to our right, until we cross the River Leam and enter Warwickshire. On our left we can see St Peter’s th Church of Wolfhamcote, which has parts dating from the 13 century. It is now redundant but used a few times a year for concerts, including an annual Christmas carol concert lit entirely by candles.

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At the bottom of the path from The Manor, cross the A45, turn left over the canal, then turn right onto a track leading past the former Castle Inn (a turnpike coaching stop), over a cattle grid and enter the field track towards Wolfhamcote (a public bridleway but please keep dogs on leads and shut gates behind you). Ahead of us the former line of the canal, now disused since later straightening, can be seen clearly until it disappears beneath the old railway embankment (which dates from 1888, long after this section of canal was disused, so there was never a bridge).

River Leam

While the line of the canal was initially surveyed by James Brindley, the detail of the line was set out by Samuel Simcock, who went to enormous lengths to minimise the need for earthworks by following the contours of the land (see map). Crossing the turnpike three times, the canal went up the valley of Bragborough Stream to a crossing point where the marina now stands, then made an extravagant loop to the south to cross the River Leam and returned down the west side of the Leam valley to Wolfhamcote, covering 5km (3 miles) to end up at a point only 1.5km (1 mile) in a straight line from where we cross the canal on the A45 bridge.

Aqueduct

On our right are the remains of the former village of Wolfhamcote, recorded in the Domesday Book as Ufelmes Manor with a population of 100 but depopulated following enclosures in 1500. The outline of the old moated manor house can still be discerned.

Passing Wolfhamcote Hall on the right, we cross the old line of the Oxford Canal at the site of the 30 yard Wolfhamcote Tunnel, now filled in, where sections of the old canal still in water can be seen leading away in both directions. Continuing straight ahead along a track called the Stone Road and crossing the line of the former Great Central Railway London Extension (1897), we soon come to Ivy Bridge (Bridge 98) on the current line of the Oxford Canal, while visible a short distance further along the track are the remains of a further former loop, again with sections still in water.

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