As low as we go.

We set off from our very quiet overnight morning and stopped half a mile later to top up with water at Bascote Wharf. It was lovely and quiet there and would make a good long term mooring.

Not long after the water point are the four Bascote Locks. The first two are in a staircase. As we approached we saw activity at the lock. It turns out that there were two boats in the bottom lock and the top lock full ready to drop down to the lower one. They opened the top gate to let us drop down in the lock. They ruined it a little by treating us as if we had never seen a narrow boat before with reference to passing with the middle gates open. It isn't rocket science but some like to think it is. Helen kept her own council and we passed through in good humour.

The levels in the pounds were pretty low and after speaking to several other boaters it seems that the pumping system that gets water up and down these locks was not working (or not being used). Above is the staircase lock.

The next six locks are strung out along the cut for the next three miles. In that distance it crosses two ancient routes. The first is the Welsh Road. It was a drovers road that was used to move cattle from North Wales to South East England. They were moved along day by day and before going to the markets they were fattened up following their trip. The age of the road is not really known but there are records relating to it from 1687. The second route is the Fosse Way. This is a Roman Road that was built soon after the Romans arrived. It is thought that it may well have been a boarder marking the limit of the Roman occupation around AD43. It actually links Lincoln with Exeter and is pretty straight all the way. It may have been that the road was built along side the defensive ditch or the ditch was built to defend the road.

We moored for lunch between the Fosse Bottom lock and Radford bottom lock. The levels fluctuated seriously as the locks were worked above and below with the regular passing boats. After eating we moved on to below the Radford Lock where the pound is much longer and so fluctuates much less.

I just liked the dog on the back end of the boat.

When the Grand Union was enlarged to wide beam the new locks were built next to the old single locks. This meant that the length of canal was never closed as boats could still use the narrow locks. It was 1934 when the wide beam locks were opened.

We are now in the basement pound and we are as low as we descend now before climbing up towards Birmingham again.