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Date: 10th July 2024
Canal: Grand Union Canal
Direction: West
Locks: 10
Swing bridges: 0
Navigating through Royal Leamington Spa
The cruise:
After a short cruise from Radford Semele, we reach the outskirts of Leamington Spa and tie the boat up (on mooring rings) outside the student accommodation. We need a few pieces of shopping so climb the steps beside the bridge, turn right and we are immediately in the town.
Walking around Leamington Spar is a pleasure, it is a bustling place with all the shops we could need including a variety of boutique shops, every type of restaurant imaginable and lots of cultural options.
After a few hours in the town, we move on and moor the boat outside Morrisons. It’s an opportunity to tie the boat up right outside a supermarket (in order to do a full shop), to bring the shopping trolly down a ramp and up to our stern doors. Pets at Home is also a short walk away, so we buy a large bag of dog food.
John wants to get closer to the Hatton Flight, because this will be tomorrows challenge, so we go through 2 locks. But once we get to the bottom of the flight, we realise that there is plenty of the day left and so we make the decision to do a few of these locks as well, with a view to mooring a short way up and lessening tomorrow’s task. In the end we complete 8 locks and find a mooring (all alone) in the short pond between locks 33 and 34. Having done this, climbing the rest of the flight tomorrow seems to be much more achievable.
Jephson Gardens
Royal Leamington Spa:
Originally identified as ‘Lamintone’ in the Doomsday Book, the small village of Leamington Priors grew into a large spar town in the 19th century. There is a surprisingly large amount of Georgian and Victorian architecture preserved within the town centre.
Green spaces, with fountains and sculptures, are dotted throughout the town and Jephson Gardens is a very fine public park. I was surprised to find a small sensory garden within the park and enjoyed the short walk along its winding path, among the highly scented plants.
Within part of the Royal Pump Rooms is the Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum. We would highly recommend a visit; it is small but contains some wonderful paintings and museum exhibits.
A lock before we start to climb the Hatton Flight
Mooring between the locks on the Hatton Flight:
I have to admit to being a little nervous about mooring in such a short pound, partway up the Hatton Flight. We were all alone that night with only a handful of pedestrians passing and no boats. Potentially mooring here could result in the boat rocking a lot as the water is moved through the locks, but this wasn’t an issue with no movement through them.
There was Armco, so we were able to securely tie the boat up.
The towpath was good, but (obviously) very steep.
There was plenty of light for the solar panels.
There was no internet or TV signal here.
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We are John, Lorraine, and Boasley the Boat Dog.
Follow our adventures as we learn to live the life of contiuous cruisers on the British waterways.
