Dear Motley Crew,
“Where are you headed?” they asked. “Oh, the Ashby? You’ll love it, it’s beautiful; we spent a week up there.”
After making the turn into the Ashby – or to give it its full title, the Ashby de la Zouch Canal – we were prepared, based on all reports, to be overwhelmed by what lay ahead. Indeed, we were. It was shallow, muddy, and the edges of the canal were broken and rocky. The visitor moorings, which could accommodate only one or two boats, were few and far between, and those that we happened upon were occupied by boats that had clearly been there for longer than the permitted 48 hours. In fact, some of them looked as though they were intending to see out the winter right where they were. By late afternoon, chilled to the bone and with the fog closing in, we’d had enough. The decision was made to moor up overnight on the first run of Armco that we could find, and then the following day, turn at the first available winding hole and head back to the Coventry Canal.
Not long after mooring, we heard the unmistakable chug-chug of what are known as “one-lungers”, the old single-cylinder working boats and eventually, a river trader appeared out of the fog. We flagged him down and replaced our gas bottle but positioning his boat to fill our fuel tank was too difficult given the narrowness of the canal, so we agreed to meet him on his return leg.
These guys work hard during the winter months supplying boats that choose to spend that time moored up on the canals
The next day, was a “non-travelling day” – cold, wet, and foggy – the kind of day when you don’t move unless you have to. We didn’t have to, so we walked into the tiny village of Burton Hastings and our entire attitude to the canal changed. We suddenly understood that the charm of this canal was not the waterway itself, which is what we had been expecting, but rather the villages along its banks and the history that they held.
We met a local and stopped to chat, and during the course of the conversation, he excitedly informed us, that work had begun that very morning on the toilet extension at the church. “The archeologist is on-site now,” he said, and it was all we could do to contain our mirth. We were heading that way to see the church’s sundial as it happened, so off we went, laughing about the minutiae of small-town life.
To the right of the entrance is a sun-dial with the words "Carpe Diem" inscribed. We've seen quite a few narrowboats with that name
We came upon the workers who had paused for smoko, and they informed us that the archeologist had indeed arrived. “She’s around the back,” they said. It was only when we went in search of her, that we realised the significance of the “toilet extension” and the extent of our ignorance. The foundations were being dug in the graveyard and each bucket-load of earth that was taken out was having to be carefully sifted and examined for human remains.
The digger hit something hard and we wondered if it had unearthed a grave, but the archeologist advised that it was merely the foundation of a crumbled buttress that had once strengthened the wall of the church.
The connection points – the red patches on the wall to the right of the window – are still visible
The old schoolhouse
We wandered through the village and back to the canal and decided that we might just stick to the original plan and continue to the end to see what other surprises it might hold. As it turned out, there were plenty.
We left Burton Hastings and made our way to the rather non-descript town of Hinckley that offered us a 48-hour mooring on a solid, mud-free towpath. Of course, we took it. The main attraction – aside from the towpath, however – was the Triumph motorbike factory, the very same one that had moved from Coventry in the late 80’s. Sadly for us, Lockdown MK II had just begun and we were unable to get in to do a factory tour so this was the closest we got to it,
by land ....
or by canal
We were also sad to learn that Triumph will soon be moving most of its production to Thailand to cater to the burgeoning Asian market. As we've learned this year, change is a constant.
Although having been denied access to the modern chariots of Hinckley, we discovered that we were actually moored right beside the old Roman road of Watling Street, now known as the A5. "Wow,” we thought, “how amazing”, and then recalled that many of the streets and highways in Australia were indigenous walking tracks and songlines that are over 60,000 years old. So, not so “wow” really.
The old Roman roads are as straight as a die
We left Hinckley and continued on to Stoke Golding, lured on by a story about socks, but we were to discover that there was much more to learn about the village than its hosiery history.
The village’s claim to fame is that in 1485, its inhabitants witnessed the unofficial coronation of Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch. Following his victory over Richard III at the nearby Battle of Bosworth, Henry's entourage retired to the hilly ground near the village and held an impromptu traditional coronation with a circlet from a nearby thorn bush.
As many of you will know, Richard’s story had a far more ignominious ending, and he was to turn up in 2013 beneath a car park in Leicester. Seems it pays to be on the winning team!
The local church of St Margaret’s, which has its origins in the 13th century, was also a witness to the battle, for it is recorded that the inhabitants of the village watched the fracas from its steeple.
In fact, several of the church’s windowsills still bear deep grooves which were reputedly made by the soldiers sharpening their swords and axes on the eve of the battle
Fast forward hundreds of years, and the church was to find itself an observer to another battle. During the Second World War, an aerodrome was constructed at Lindley, which was in close proximity to the church. For reasons of safety, it was decided to dismantle the spire as night-flying operations had commenced, and there were concerns that it would hinder aircraft during take-offs and landings at the airfield. The spire was carefully taken to pieces and each stone numbered. The stones from the steeple were laid out in a specific pattern on a concrete slab behind the church and they remained there until after the war’s end when the spire was re-built.
The outline of the stacked stones can still be seen
On the southern wall of the church, near to the church’s entrance, we came upon this etching.
After some investigating, we discovered that it is a mass dial, which was used by priests to advise the time for Mass. The lines radiating from a central hole had at their centre, a wooden peg known as a gnomon (Greek for ‘indicator’), which allowed the sun to cast its shadow and thereby indicate the mass time. A sort of vertical sundial.
And here was John Hall’s hosiery factory which was built in 1882. The archives tell us that, initially, it employed just 16 people, “and had a monthly turnover of £32 4s 4d”. Unlike most other factories that we’ve seen around the system, this one has been given a new life as a block of rather beautiful apartments.
The original goal for 'Honest' John Hall was to provide warm, long-lasting hosiery for the farming community. The first socks he produced in 1892 were pure Scottish-wool, half-hose, and were recorded as costing 2s 7d for 2 dozen pairs. They also came with a twelve-month guarantee. I’d certainly buy a couple of dozen for that price.
Stoke Golding was proving to be something of a hidden gem. Right beside our mooring, we noticed a small sign directing canal traffic to Tomlinson’s Farm Shop and upon investigation, we happened upon this Aladdin’s Cave of Produce. We never got the opportunity to visually record all the goodies for sale, as our hands were always too full of bread, and olive and scones, and cream to juggle a camera. Thankfully, someone else obviously had empty hands to snap these shots.
Now here’s something that you don’t see much anymore –
a telephone box -
that has a functioning telephone inside.
After learning about the Battle of Bosworth, we were now keen to push on along the canal to the village of Market Bosworth and the battlefield where the skirmish had apparently taken place.
You know, we should have put two and two together when we read of the villagers watching the battle from the church’s spire, but we didn’t, and neither, it seems, did the historical and marketing team behind the establishment of the “multi-award-winning Bosworth Battlefield Experience”. For it turns out to be, rather embarrassingly, located in the wrong place.
A recently concluded study of original documents, and an archaeological survey of the area, has now determined that in actual fact, the battle took place more than a mile to the south-west of said heritage centre. In light of these findings, plans are underway to build a footpath to the new site, and negotiations are ongoing with local farmers to agree to the invasion of their bucolic calm by thousands of visitors annually.
Right next to where we were moored at it happens!
But not to worry, for Market Bosworth has other claims to fame that it can call upon to entice visitors. Bosworth Hall, for instance, was built for the Dixie family in the late 1600’s.
In 1732, Sir Wolstan Dixie, who had something of a reputation for being an ignorant bully, employed one young, and impoverished Samuel Johnson as schoolmaster at The Dixie Grammar School in Market Bosworth. Dixie, who was Chief Trustee of the school, apparently made Johnson’s life so difficult that he relinquished the position after only a few short months. To the end of his days, Johnson recollected his time in Market Bosworth “with the strongest aversion and even a degree of horror.”
Market Bosworth also has more recent links to famous names and battles. We came upon this memorial on the footpath outside a non-descript factory, which turned out to be the premises of Churchill’s, who manufacture precision-tooling and turbine blades for the aerospace industry.
The founder, Walter Churchill, was a WW2 Spitfire ace, who was killed in action over Italy. His brother, Peter, was with the SOE and at one point, was married to Odette Hallowes, who was infamously imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo. Her life formed the basis for the film Odette.
We were now not far from the terminus of the canal with just the tiny villages of Congerstone, Shakerstone and Snarestone ahead. Other than a canal-side pub at each, there was little reason to stop, except to recall that Congerstone had been the home of one afore-mentioned John Massey, the man who, after being hanged for murdering his wife, was left suspended for the next 18 years from a gibbet post.
The end of the line so to speak, was Snarestone, where we had hoped to spend a few days. Once again, however, we found the 48-hour mooring chock-a-block with boats that looked as though they were holed up for the winter. So, with the afternoon closing in and fingers frozen stiff from the cold and the rain, we turned, chugged back through the tunnel, and moored up a mile or so back along the canal. Tomorrow we would begin our trip back from whence we’d come.
Towpath markers were indicating that we had only a short way to go until we reached the junction and turned once again onto the Coventry Canal.
At the moment, at the very moment, that we negotiated the turn out of the Ashby, we received an urgent text message from Canal and River Trust, advising that a “significant failure” had occurred at Snarestone, the very end of the Ashby Canal and that the canal was closed to navigation as of that moment.
This was the “significant failure” – a large breach that was beginning to drain the entire length of the canal.
This is what happens when a canal runs out of water. Thankfully for this owner, he lived nearby and was able to adjust his mooring ropes to avert a capsize.
A group of quick-thinking locals began dropping the stop boards into place as soon as the breach was discovered.
So, after three and a half weeks spent exploring the Ashby, we'd say "yes" it is rather unique, "yes" it's beautiful, and "yes" we loved it. Its shallow canal forces you to travel at no more than two miles an hour, but all the better to see the things there are to see.
The Captain, The Commodore and Mrs Chippy
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