We downed a hearty breakfast to fuel us down the last 16 locks towards Stratford.
Fortunately they are all single locks and being a popular destination we met enough boats coming up as going down, some very helpful volockies, and some very pretty lock landings adopted by a local couple.
I have to confess we’re never sure how we’re going to feel arriving in such a busy tourist destination.
Generally we want to run a mile back to the tranquility of the countryside, but occassionally, we arrive just get a sense of, yes, let’s treat this as a holiday and be tourists, and enjoy the atmosphere. I think a lot depends on where we actually get a mooring.
The Stratford canal terminates at Bancroft Basin. The basin is in one of two remaining wharfs. The other was filled in in the 1930s and became Bancroft Gardens. It’s a hub of entertainment for all the visitors with buskers, icecream vendors, and peddlers all willing to lighten your purse.
In the mid 1800s however, I doubt it was quite so pretty. The area was heaving with commercial activity, 50 000 tonnes of coal passed through Statford each year. There were also glass and lead wharfs, a cooperage, a cider press, a skin yard and a timber yard all served by a tram way. Nowadays, Warwickshire can expect well over 6 million tourists per year and I think half of them come to take a ride on the trip boats that now operate from the basin.
Of course Statfords most famous face is the hurdy gurdy playing busker in the town centre.
closely followed by William Shakespeare.
And there are monuments all over the place
The fabulous Royal Shakespeare Company Theatre dominates the gardens and river. We chose to go to one of the fringe theatres, even closer to Firecrest than the RSC. The Attic, housed in the old wood yard at the end of the basin, we saw Noel Coward’s Private Lives, and thoroughly recommend this little theatre company to anyone passing through Stratford.
Mooring is restricted to 48 hours in the basin, and whilst we got one of the prime linear spots, most of the mooring is on pontoons, which aren’t quite long enough to make for the easiest of mooring venues. Although this is terminus for the Stratford canal, there is a lock which opens out onto the River Avon.
We bought our ANT licence, (£70 for 2 weeks) and spent another night on the River Avon
With everything in such easy walking distance we could easily have stayed another few nights in Stratford. Good fish and chips from the Kingfisher on Ely Street, worth the extra 10 minutes walk.
