Hello Atherstone.

 There was a bit of rain in the early hours but when we woke up it was sunny and not as cold as I was expecting.

We were soon passing this wide area that looks like a winding hole. It is this sort of thing that I really enjoy. This looks like nothing, all that can be seen is an overgrown brick wall!

But when you look into it it was a busy stone wharf, with a tramway bringing the product fro  a quarry on the Hartshill Road. If you walk up from the C&RT Harts Hill Yard there are some new houses on the right. The track from Br.33 goes through them). This is where the quarry was. In fact by 1913 when this map was made another tramway was built up to another smaller quarry nearer the castle. However by 1923 the wharf was closed and the tramway removed. I suspect the stone was taken to the wharf at Hartshill, just to the west of Br. 32 by cart.

This is a pleasant stretch of the canal, especially around Rawn Hill on the outskirts of Atherstone. I had another Specsavers moment at Br.40. I lingered at the wide just before the bridge to allow a boat to pass the moored boats and come out into wider water. Once more I was sure they had looked at us waiting there, but they just kept on coming down our st'bd side!! Fortunately we were both going slow, and I was going astern by the time they realised I was there. I managed to get clear and as he passed down our st'bd side he said that he had been thinking of going in to moor at a gap, but had changed his mind. I don't think so. Should there be a compulsory eyesight test to drive a boat? Or is it just me??

Anyway we found a spot before the locks and pulled in. After a coffee we took the rubbish to the pound (no recycling), and walked into town. The top of the locks is very well provided for with lovely flower beds and is looked after by one of the volunteers.

Every boater on the Coventry Canal will be familiar with this old hat factory, the last one working in Atherstone that was renowned for hat making, that closed in 1999. It seems that it wont be there much longer as the local council have agreed that it should be demolished. There are plans for a 70 bed care home on the site. 

This is what it looks like from the road side. It was built in the early 1800;s and was called the Britannia Works. The original plane was to retain the facade, but after hearing that to conserve the frontage would add £500,000 to the costs they said it could be knocked down and rebuilt in the same design as the original. It may soon look a lot tidier once work starts.

Atherstone grew up in Roman times as Watling Street goes right through it. In fact it is 100 miles from London.

he A5 today, joined Holyhead and with London and vastly improved by Thomas Telford so that Governance of Ireland following the Act of Union in 1800, was quicker as the mail coaches got to the ferry to Ireland from London, much quicker. In 1815 Government passed an Act to improve the road to the port and thus the first public funded road scheme got under way with Thomas Telford as the engineer in charge. Much like road schemes today it caused disruption for many a year as it wasn't completed until 1826 when the Menai Bridge was opened in 1826. This milestone outside the Red Lion on Long Street is from the middle of the 1700's though.

On the Bubble Inn pub window the glass was advertising a long gone brewery. The Phillips and Marriotts Brewery from Coventry was created in 1900, probably by the joining of a couple of smaller brewery. The brewery was in Coventry. By 1924 they had acquired about 110 pubs and were bought out by Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton Ltd and the Coventry Brewery closed. This is the name of the famous Bass brewery that started in Burton on Trent in 1777.

This is the Albert Hall in Long Street. It was designed as a meeting place for the Independent Temperance and Evangelical Church in 1876. It had seating for 500 so there must have been plenty of 'dissenters' in Atherstone as there are at least two other chapels. It is now a gym, with a turnstile at the door!

A bit further out of town was the building of Atherston Grammar School. I believe that the building opened in 1863 where it had moved from the Chancel of St. Mary's Church on the Market Square. It had been in the church since the Dissolution by Henry VIII as it had been in at a religious order.

Above the door is this plaque with the motto that looks like 'Loyal Suisise' which I am translating as 'Loyal 'til death', but I may be well off the track there. If there are any Latin Scholars out there please correct me. The date suggest the year it was established at St. Mary's as it is well after the Dissolution.

The old Swan is the oldest timber framed building in Atherstone, and still has the mark of a cruck-framed wall. There is a New Swan in town too.

St. Mary's Church was built on the site of an old chapel in 1375 by Augustine Friars. The Friary was next door and it is to this chancel that the Grammar school moved after the Friars were turfed out.

This is Swan Archway andleads through to where the Friary once was, hence Friar's Gate. Atherstone Hall was built on the site of the Friary in 1619 and in 1798 the owner decided he didn't like people passing n front of his house so diverted the road through the yard of the Swan Inn. Money talks. Mind you there are some places I would love to do this too.