Coventry Canal - Coventry to Nuneaton (★★★☆☆)

Today we are out exploring the Coventry Canal - and over two days we will look to complete the stretch of this canal between Coventry and Tamworth. We will then come back at a later date to complete the walk round to the join with the Trent & Mersey Canal near Fradley.

We will split this walk up at Nuneaton (here we will stay overnight) - and this means that we will have one fairly urban stretch of canal walking today as we make our way through (and out of) Coventry, before then having a far more rural stretch to enjoy on the following day.

And so today we are heading down to Coventry by train in the early morning - and then have the slightly complex task of walking across Coventry to meet up with the Coventry Canal.

In theory this task should be fairly straight-forward, as our path heads through out of the far end of the city centre - but navigation of this city centre is quite not as easy as it might seem.

Coventry was a city that was devasted during World War II (as it was a key industrial centre for the war) - and on the 14th November 1940 the city suffered the worst attack on any British city during the entirety of the war.

The raid on this night lasted for 11 hours - and during this period 500 Luftwaffe bombers dropped 500 tons of high explosives, 30,000 incendiaries, and 50 landmines on the city - destroying the centre of the city.

The official death toll of this night of bombing is recorded as 554 (but the actual number is believed to be higher) - and after the war Coventry needed extensive rebuilding, for which the master plan was a pedestrianised shopping district, surrounded by a ring road.

Unfortunately the post war era wasn't known for it's architectural brilliance - and on our trip through the city centre we have to navigate a fairly complex maze of paths to reach the other side - before finishing up with a trip over a concrete bridge, in order to reach the Coventry Basin on the far side of that ring road.

But with the horror show that is post-war Coventry behind us, we can take comfort in the older buildings we find at Coventry Basin.

Coventry Basin

But whilst we are by now outside the ring road that surrounds the very centre of Coventry, we are still very much within the wider city - and we will remain so until shortly before we meet up with the Oxford Canal near Hawkesbury.

Inner city canal routes are rarely wonderful places - and here we have plenty of younger lads riding round on their e-bikes, that do have a whiff of the drug dealer about them - but this route along the Coventry Canal is actually quite an enjoyable and pleasant one.

And whilst there are decent levels of litter along the canal, it could be far worse - and we do have a very high quality towpath to follow as we make our way through Coventry.

Early on along the canal

And heading under a bridge

For all the relative pleasantness of this trip through the city, there isn't all that much to report back on either - there aren't a huge amount of the usual old buildings lining the canal (presumably many got destroyed during the war) - and so here we can jump ahead a bit in this walk, to the point where we are coming past Coventry Arena.

This is the first truly notable landmark we have reached along this walk - and thanks to the success of the team last year, this is home to a Premier League football team (at least for now).

But for us, this stadium mostly has value as a potential way on and off of the canal - and for those wishing to skip this urban section of the canal, you can join the canal here - making use of the train station that serves the stadium.

But once we head out beyond the stadium (and under the M6), we close in on a more interesting sight - as we reach the junction between the Coventry Canal and the Oxford Canal.

The Coventry Canal

Oxford Canal

The junction between the two

The original plan had been for the two canals to meet in the middle of Coventry - but whilst the bill was in Parliament, the engineer James Brindley sought to move the join to Bedworth.

At the time James Brindley was working for both companies, and so had a good idea about what the best route would be - but that didn't mean that each canal wasn't primarily focused on their own interests.

And this shift in the meeting point would act to reduce the distance travelled by coal barges along the Coventry Canal - which was a problem, because these coal barges paid lucrative tolls to the canal.

Finding a solution to this problem proved difficult - and from 1777 the two canals actually met at Longford (near that stadium), and ran parallel for about a mile, before boats could then continue on up the Oxford Canal from Hawkesbury.

But eventually sense prevailed - and an agreement was reached that allowed the two canals to join here at Hawkesbury.

That solved one issue, but the meeting of these canals also brought a second issue - with the Oxford Canall being slightly higher than the Coventry Canal - and this issue had to be remedied with the installation of a stop lock between the canals, and the addition of a steam engine, that could pump water from nearby feeders into the canals.

The engine used was originally built around the start of the 18th century - and was one of the two engines built to pump water out of Griff Colliery, before being sold on to Oakthorpe Colliery in 1734, and then bought by the Coventry Canal in 1821. 

It would then operate on the canal until 1913 (with the engine house visible on the left having been built in 1837) - and this history is important, because this now-preserved engine (having been preserved in 1963) is thought to be the world's oldest surviving steam engine - and these days be visited at Dartmouth Museum (in Devon).

These days water pumping is back in focus, albeit for a very different reason - with a new scheme called the Grand Union Canal Transfer, aiming to move water from a treatment plant in Birmingham, along these canals to a second treatment plant in Milton Keynes.

This idea is only in the consultation phase - but the intent is to use the canals to move water from the Midlands, down to the water starved South East (with the project completing in 2033) - and this will hopefully see these historic canals help prevent a modern water shortage issue.

But our route takes us on past the engine house in which that engine sat - and on up the Coventry Canal. And now heading out across open countryside.

And from here we do see an uptick in the quality of the walking, as we start to make our way around the town of Bedworth (which sits on our left).

On our way past Bedworth (looking back)

And now we are just ahead of Marston Junction

Bedworth itself was originally a small Saxon market town - but it suffered badly from the Black Death, and by 1590 was home to just nineteen families.

But in the eighteenth century the town was booming as coal mines opened, and by 1730 the town had not just recovered, but expanded signficantly - with over two hundred and fifty homes in the town.

As far back as the 13th century there had been small scale coal mining in the area - but with the town sitting on the Warwickshire coalfield, mining activity expanded considerably through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - and produced almost six million tons of coal at it's peak (at the start of the Second World War).

This coal was a major boost to the canals - with coal being difficult to transport by road due to it's weight and mass, and therefore being willing to pay expensive tolls. 

And whilst the railway created competition for the canals in 1850, coal traffic along the canal persisted until the 1960s, after which it finally died out - with the last colliery in Bedworth closing not much later in 1982.

But as we leave this former coal mining town of Bedworth behind, we meet up with another legacy of coal mining at Marston Junction - where the Coventry Canal connects up with the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Canal (usually referred to just as the Ashby Canal).

This canal at it's peak ran down from Moira - which was another area of heavy mining activity (this time connecting into the Leicestershire coal field). And this canal opened in 1804 - fourteen years after the completion of the Coventry Canal.

Since 1966 the Ashby Canal has ceased to run beyond Snarestone - but work is ongoing to reopen the canal up to it's former end point at Moria.

But leaving this canal behind we continue to head out across the fields - as we start to close in on the very edge of Nuneaton.

Some modern industry on the way into Nuneaton

Upon reaching the edge of Nuneaton we still have to walk about half way through town, before we reach our turn off - and this route through town is a very pleasant one.

On our way through Nuneaton

The plan I have is to cut across to the Nuneaton Bedworth Travelodge, but although this lies not very far off the canal, it turns out that it sits on a dual carriageway with no direct footpath - and so here there is a trek first through the hospital car park, and then a bit of a bold scurry across that dual carriageway to reach my bed for the night.

But it is a quiet and cheap Travelodge that more than does for the night. And here we can catch some rest ahead of a more rural (and slightly longer) trip up the canal to Tamworth tomorrow.

Total Distance: 11.8 miles (10.2 miles along the canal)

Total Ascent: 266 feet (167 feet along the canal)

Enjoyment Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ ★ ★ / 5

Click for the adjoining section of the Coventry Canal from Nuneaton to Tamworth.

Disclaimer: This writeup provides a narrative of what to expect rather than a route guide to follow. The route is covered by the 140 OS Landranger map (links redirect to Amazon). The route is very easy to follow (with the main challenge being getting through Coventry City Centre)