Goodbye River Hello Canal
An hour and a half after leaving Teddington we were back onto the Grand Junction/Union Canal. Although for the first mile or so the canal and River Brent intermingle and there is still a tidal element at times. We had hoped to stop so we could visit Kew gardens, But we couldn’t have moored in Brentford even if we had wanted to, it was nose to tail with boats, even on the water point. But never the less we were treated to some interesting views. Brentford Bridge was a pleasing sight.
It had undergone a makeover in 2021 and now celebrated the canals wildlife.
But it wasn’t long before reality of urban canals ground us to a halt, weed, plastic and rubbish, hidden under the water waiting to wrap itself around our prop, making it near impossible to steer. It is one of the foulest of boat jobs that falls onto Eric’s shoulders, because his arms are longer than mine and the physical strength needed to cut away the twine tying us up. Thankfully most vegetation can thrown off with a burst of reverse throttle but fabrics, plastics, fishing line, bicycles and shopping trolleys are all a boaters nightmare.
All three of our convoy had to defoul our props more than once, but we gradually left the urban sprawl and found ourself cruising along some genuinely beautiful and historic canal. We stuck with our Lock buddies to work the Hanwell flight, passing the victorian paupers and lunatic asylum. The wall along the canal and the flight of locks are now a scheduled ancient monument. When the asylum was first opened in the 1830s it wasn’t as popular as the workhouse or jail because there was a fee of nine shillings per week to stay there. But needless to say it wasn’t long before it was full. It currently houses the West London Mental Health services headquarters and is known as St Bernards Hospital
We passed “through” the three bridges (officially windmill bridge) which was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel so that the railway could be routed through a deep cutting, so as not to obscure the views of Osterly Park.
https://canalplan.org.uk/place/236g
And found ourselves a nice quiet mooring for the night. Which was just as well because the rain we had been expecting when we set off at 7am arrived with a vengeance just after we had stopped.
