We slept well, as predicted, but woke feeling fine. It was dull to wake up and there was a bit of mist about. About 0830 it started to spit a little but had stopped by the time we got underway after only one boat passed us.
At Turners green, just after passing the goats we were met with this colourful sight just before the Tom O' the Woods pub. Nobody was on the water point so we stopped and topped up before heading off to Kingswood Junction.
There was a very slight delay as we waited for a boat to wind in the entrance to the cut and headed towards the Stratford Canal.
To the left is the way to Stratford that misses out two locks and was blocked up but restored in 1996. It started to spit again as I was waiting for the lock to empty. Not enough to get wet though.
The little cottage on the island formed by the two canals and cut through looks pretty from here.
As we cleared the lock a boat rising up from the next door lock, coming from Stratford took the next lock so I waited here and was able to dump the rubbish whilst waiting.
Looking back from Lock 19 towards the junction I was struck by the 'spiders web' foot bridge that is not how they would do it today.
The reconstruction of this lock 15 left it two foot shorter than the others on the canal. That means it must be only 68' long as the maximum is said to be 70'.
We were following the boat up until Lock 14 where they stopped for lunch. We couldn't see anything ahead but all the locks seemed to be full. Are they all badly leaking as we had several downward boats?
The Startford Upon Avon Canal Society mile posts are not over fancy but do the job.
The blue engineering bricks on the coping of a lock were imprinted with W. Bennitt, Oldbury. It seems that he was an iron and coal master following in his family footsteps as they had created the blast furnaces in Oldbury around 1780. William was born in 1800. It seems that he started the brickworks next to the iron works around 1850 and produced these bricks between around 1850 and 1865, as after that he joined with another man and the stamp became different. He was declared bankrupt in 1866.
Looking down from lock 8 to lock 14 reveals that this is a pretty flight of locks.
Lock 7 has this pretty cottage and a lovely split bridge that still had the horse rope roller still in place. It must have been a skillful place to boat as the pounds between locks here are short and with a 70' boat meeting another would be interesting, especially ones like this that are on a curve too. I wonder what the rule was?
We swapped over at the bottom, at lock 14 with Helen taking the helm and enjoying the different challenge of narrow locks.
After the locks the fun isn't over as there are two lift bridges close by. Not electric but windlass powered Helen dealt with them efficiently.
A little further on, after Bridge 25 was this little arm that serviced a coal wharf, with the Wharf pub next to it.
We didn't go much further before mooring up as it started to spit again and we were hungry. After a cheese and onion cob I got some jobs done before tea. Things like filling the stern glad greaser, sweeping out the gutter round the engine hole and cutting and laying some new rubber matting at the stern.
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