Weary walkers.

0 Locks 0 miles still moored bridge 58 Oxford canal.
Total of 221 locks and 233¹/₂ miles and 8 Tunnels since 5th Nov 2006

As we were moored on a 24 hr mooring last night we had to move over to the towpath side of the canal which doesn’t appear to have any restrictions.
Mid morning and we headed off to town. We followed a path down behind Tesco’s thinking it would be a short cut to town. Going past what I think may have been old railway workshops we saw huge mounds of earth with concrete entranceways. I suspect they were air raid shelters left over from WWII and they have never bothered to remove them. Due to the engineering nature of the workshops similar to the car factories in Coventry they were prime targets for German bombers during the war.

The theory of the short cut was right but at the end of the path was an old footbridge which originally went right over the old railway yards. The steps leading up to the bridge were there but they were fenced off as the bridge has been dismantled. There was a sign about rebuilding the bridge but it was out of date and well past completion date so who knows.

Luckily the locals have beaten a track alongside the railway embankment out to where a road entered part of the old goods yard and then out onto the main road.

As we walked along this road there were old bridge abutments with a railway embankment atop. I scrambled up the embankment to see where the embankment led from and to. On one side are the current coal sidings and on the other I could see what had been a branch line or private siding leading off into the distance.

As we got closer to town we walked under another old railway bridge with 11 arches. This bridge is all fenced off a both ends and used to be part of the Great Central Railway prior to amalgamation with the London North Western Railway and finally with the London Midland Scottish railway. The GCR was eventually closed down completely but there are plans to try and reopen it. There is a trust that has 20 miles of track in use at Loughborough

Rugby used to be a very big centre in the days of steam trains prior to the Beeching cuts in the 1960’s. Over the years it has been served by 3 or 4 different railway companies, some sharing each others track and some having their own. The GCR actually crossed over the top of the LNWR which ran parallel to the LMS.

There are disused railway embankments and bridges all around the area where all the surrounding towns and villages used to have services from Rugby and Coventry. The photo in yesterday’s blog of an old signal gantry appears to be an old LNWR line.

The amount of land covered by the railway prior to 1960 was huge as the engine shed which had over 20 tracks took up many acres as did the goods yards and station.

Another huge part of Rugby is Rugby school, the home of rugby football. It all started in 1823 when William Webb Ellis decided it would be more fun to run with the ball instead of kicking. They call it a school but its more like a university campus and it’s very similar to Victoria University in NZ in that it owns just about every building in the suburb in which it stands. All around Rugby there are brass plaques set in the footpath commemorating various rugby events or personalities over the decades.

The photo of the mural etched out of a brick wall depicts the things that Rugby are renowned for, the canals for moving coal which was taken over by the railways and the home of the jet engine developed by Frank Whittle who was himself a Coventry lad. Other monuments were a statue in the grounds of Rugby school of Thomas Hughes QC MP and author of “Tom Browns school days” and another commemorating Frank Whittle and his association with Rugby. On the base of this monument is a map of the world denoting what the jet engine has done for the world.
On the way back to the boat we walked through Caldecott Park with its beautiful flower gardens and band rotunda. I wonder if they still have Sunday concerts where band rotunda’s still exist.

Caldicot Park in the centre of Rugby

In a small paddock alongside the railway embankment near the station are 3 wire sculpture donkeys called William, Webb and Ellis. No prizes for guessing where those names come from.