Leicester Ring
14 - 17 nights
Hours cruising:
The Leicester Ring: 108 hrs*
239 miles, 92 wide locks, 44 narrow locks, 2 aqueducts, 6 tunnels.
*These are approximate hours and do not account for possible delays.
Travel north along the Ouzel Valley through the parks of Milton Keynes and over the Aqueducts at Wolverton and Cosgrove and then on to the picturesque Northamptonshire village of Stoke Bruerne. Take your boat up through the flight of seven locks and on through the nearly two mile long Blisworth Tunnel and on to Gayton Junction.
Continue on through Northamptonshire and its attractive stone villages to Weedon, reputed to be the centre of England. Up the Buckby flight of seven locks to Norton Junction and turn right onto the Leicester section of the Grand Union Canal.
Cross the embankment and through the woods to the locks at Watford Gap. Here you will come across your first staircase locks where the bottom gates of one lock form the top gates of the next.
After Watford Gap there is a twenty mile lock free pound across the summit to Foxton, which includes the Crick and Husbands Bosworth tunnels. At Foxton are the remains of an old steam-driven inclined plane. The old engine house is now an excellent museum illustrating how the steam-driven plane was built and worked. You can see where the old incline plane lift used to operate.
At the bottom of Foxton locks continue on through Saddington tunnel to the city of Leicester with its large shopping centre and covered market. Then on to Loughborough where the Great Central Railway Museum is just a short walk from the canal.
The canal then joins the River Soar, which flows down to its junction with the River Trent just south of Nottingham. Up the River Trent for 2 miles and on to the Trent & Mersey Canal to Fradley Junction, where you head south on to the Coventry and North Oxford Canals back to Braunston and the Grand Union Canal to Leighton Buzzard.
Hours cruising:
The Leicester Ring: 108 hrs*
239 miles, 92 wide locks, 44 narrow locks, 2 aqueducts, 6 tunnels.
*These are approximate hours and do not account for possible delays.