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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Best mooring ever ❤️ Bumble Hole Nature Reserve, where Netherton Tunnel Branch Canal meets Dudley No. 2 Canal. Dudley canal continued under the bridge to the right to join the Worcester & Birmingham Canal at Selly Oak, though it only reaches Hawne Basin now. #boatlife #ukcanals #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a canal junction n a rural setting. Footbridges cross the waterway to the left, at the entrance of an arm that was once the original course of the Dudley No. 2 Canal, in the distance over the Netherton Tunnel Branch Canal, and to the right, where the Dudley No. 2 Canal continues on towards Hawne Basin.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

From colliery and steelworks to modern office/retail/leisure estate, and an old, old story playing out on a mooring at Merry Hill on the Dudley No. 1 Canal. Thar be locks ahead, millions of 'em. #boatlife #ukcanals #canal #narrowboat #KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a modern pub warmly lit in the fading evening light. A chimney heritage 'feature' with the word 'Banks' painted vertically down it rises behind the pub. On the opposite bank, a sign for The Copthorne Hotel is embedded in a copse on a steep slope. At the far side of the basin in the foreground, a half-sunken cruiser is tied to bollards.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Netherton Tunnel, opened 1858, the last canal tunnel to be built, watched over by the ruin of Cobbs Engine House, which between c.1831 and 1928 pumped water from mines into the canal. #ukcanals #narrowboat #KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo from a bridge over a canal where a narrowboat has just emerged from a long tunnel. A brick chimney tower and the top floor of a small ruined brick building rise up from the midst of a heavily tree-covered area.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

That 20-mile distance is not a *CRT* expectation/interpretation. It is indeed commonly quoted, but not by the CRT. I've queried this specifically with the CRT, and the response was that just 20 miles in a licence year will raise red flags come licence renewal time.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

🤔 Specific CRT distance requirements for continuous cruising are myth; a set distance is nowhere specified, in law, in CRT terms and conditions or in any CRT guidance. A CCer who ranges only, or little more than, the oft-quoted 20 miles in a licence year risks having their licence restricted.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Always love the bustling life at Gas Street Basin, but not at all a fan of the Birmingham Canal Navigations main line out. 📷 Dudley Port Junction, where the Netherton Tunnel Branch Canal meets the BCN main line. #boatlife #ukcanals #canal #narrowboat #KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a grey narrowboat passing beneath a cast-iron footbridge as it turns off the Birmingham Canal Navigations main line onto the Netherton Tunnel Branch Canal.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

NB Scorpio, built 1935 for the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company on the London to Birmingham route, passing a junction with the Birmingham Canal Old Line (which became Oozells Street Loop). #boatlife #ukcanals #canal #narrowboat #KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a historic working narrowboat passing a canal junction in a heavily redeveloped part of Birmingham where the canal is lined with high-rise apartments.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

The Roundhouse next to the canal in Birmingham, built 1874 on the site of a canal wharf as stables for the Corporation of Birmingham. Acquired by British Waterways 2001, restored in partnership with the National Trust 2021. #heritage #ukcanals #KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a circular, two-storey brick building in a cobble-stone yard with a tunnel beneath leading to the canal.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Thank you. I believe after floods in 1947 the flood defences here were improved (probably during the road improvements in the 1960s), and that contained the huge 2007 flood, though only just. The quay itself often disappears under water pretty much every winter.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

On this day in 1580, Queen Elizabeth I granted Gloucester port status. The port facility then was a quay on the River Severn, today a river wall watched over by the 326-year-old former customs house, to which boats cling if Gloucester Lock is not ready (I speak from bitter experience 😨). #ukcanals

Photo of the quay at Gloucester on the approach to Gloucester Lock. The former customs house, built c.1700 on the site of the original, 1581-built customs house can be seen at the left edge of the image.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Doesn't help that I've been a lifelong smoker (passive smoking wasn't a thing when I was a child). You don't get to do that without consequences. I can handle the occasional lock, very, very slowly, but I'm going to need to arrange vlockie help down the flights whichever route I take out of Brum.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

No no. Engine's behaving. Met some visitors from Germany in Birmingham, but didn't fully appreciate that the city is sat on a plateau, which means locks, lots of them. Really feeling my age now, so resting up for a while before I face the descent.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Whilst I'm in a bit of a boatlife hiatus, here's a snippet from another of my passions, the history and #heritage of #Gloucester Ruins of St. Oswald's Priory, where Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, was buried after her death 12 June 918. gloucester500.co.uk/st-oswalds.h...

gloucester500.co.uk

Gloucester 500 | St. Oswald's Priory

The golden minster of a Saxon queen in the shadow of a Norman conqueror

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

University accommodation on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal at Selly Oak. To the right is where the Dudley No. 2 Canal once joined the W&B; to the left is where a restored Dudley No. 2 Canal will one day join the W&B. #boatlife #ukcanals #narrowboat #KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a large, ultra modern canal-side building in three adjoining blocks of 9, 6 and 7 storeys, with little to indicate the metal works and wharfs that once occupied the site where the now lost Dudley No. 2 Canal met the still surviving Worcester & Birmingham Canal, while an only slightly less modern narrowboat is moored on the offside in the foreground.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

That's a wrap on my 4th year as a boat owner. Relatively sedate year, just 193 miles travelled (2nd least) and 124 locks negotiated (least), but I was immobilised by engine failure for nearly a quarter of the year. #boatlife #ukcanals #canal #narrowboat #KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Night-time at Gas Street Basin, looking towards a cast-iron bridge that spanned the lock which, in 1815, twenty years after the Worcester & Birmingham began operations, finally pierced the Worcester Bar that physically separated the Worcester & Birmingham Canal from the Birmingham Canal (so jealous was the older Birmingham Canal of its water).

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

As a year-round continuous cruiser I get to experience #boatlife in all the weather the British climate throws at us, and extreme heat is by far the worst. There's no escape 🥵 North Stratford Canal in, believe it or not, the suburbs of Birmingham. #ukcanals #KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Rural-looking canal scene, with a single canal-side property lurking in the dense vegetation next to a cruiser moored with a small butty.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Very convenient for the pub right next to it.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Echoes of a bygone age at a small arm off the north Stratford at Hockley Wharf. Ten miles and over two years from the first cut at King's Norton on the Worcester & Birmingham, this was as far as the canal had reached by 1796. #boatlife #ukcanals #narrowboat #KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a pair of canal bridges, the first taking the towpath over the entrance to a small wharf of roughly workboat length and width, though now overgrown and inaccessible to boats, the second spanning the Stratford Canal is it continues southwards.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

One of those #canal vignettes that seem to have more in common with some Tolkienesque fantasy world than the 21st century. Lapworth locks done 🥵 Just a few pesky lift bridges – the sole purpose of which is to torment solo boaters – to go 🤬 #boatlife #ukcanals #narrowboat #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of canal in a lush, verdant setting, with a narrowboat moored against the offside vegetation and a lock in the distance looking like some kind of vaguely mythical gateway.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

7/7 The original link lock was restored, without gates, in the 1990s, which gives Kingswood Basin it's odd arrangement of a triangle of locks, 21 to the basin, 20 to the Grand Union link canal, and the original, now a curious, gateless corridor between basin and link canal.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

6/7 Lock 20 performed the same function as the original lock, linking the Stratford Canal to the Warwick & Birmingham link canal, though this time from above the basin, and the Warwick & Birmingham was again a lockful of Stratford water higher as boats transited between the two canals.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

5/7 To resolve the dispute, the original lock was reinstated as a stop lock. When this proved unsatisfactory, yet another lock, today's lock 20, was built next to lock 21 and the original lock-turned-stop-lock completely filled in.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

4/7 This pleased the Warwick & Birmingham not one bit. Canal companies were ever jealous of their water supply, and the slightly older Warwick & Birmingham had benefitted from the original arrangement to the tune of a lockful of water every time a boat transited between canals. Much argument ensued.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

3/7 Lock 21 was built as part of the subsequent completion of the Stratford Canal to Stratford. This work lowered the Basin to the level of the Warwick & Birmingham and eliminated the need for the original lock, the gates of which were removed.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

2/7 Absent the lock, Kingswood Basin was 6ft higher, and a lock with a 6ft fall linked basin to the lower Warwick & Birmingham (as that part of the Grand Union then was), next to the barrel-roofed lock keeper's cottage (image background), an architectural choice unique to the Stratford Canal.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

🧵1/x Lock 21 at the utterly charming Kingswood Junction, Lapworth, where Stratford Canal meets Grand Union via a short link canal. This was as far as the Stratford got when funds ran out in 1802, at which time this lock did not exist. #boatlife #ukcanals #narrowboat #heritage #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a narrowboat in a just-filled locked. Below the lock is Kingswood Basin. Two lock-keepers' cottages can be seen in the background, one with a standard gable roof which served another lock (next to the lock in the image but out of sight), the other with a barrel roof which served a lock that once linked the basin to the Warwick & Birmingham Canal.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Really enjoyed mooring in Gas Street Basin, though it's noisy. Arrived from the Worcester & Birmingham, which is a lovely canal (Tardebigge locks are hard work). Left along the BCN Main Line (v. straight, v. boring) and down the Wolverhampton flight, also hard work and a dodgy area in places.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

4/4 The NT does not have to call on Govt. funding because the vast majority of its assets are pay-gated. It raises more funds from entry fees and a membership scheme that gives free entry alone than the CRT's total revenue. You can't put turnstiles on towpaths.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

3/4 It was not a happy experience for the NT. The Second Age of Canals as leisure amenity was still some years from maturing, and the canal proved to be a liability. Talk of closure resurfaced in the 1980s, until the canal was returned to British Waterways in 1988 with a hefty Government endowment.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

2/2 The canal had been unnavigable since 1947 and was threatened with formal closure in 1959, but under NT control and through the efforts of the Stratford upon Avon Canal Society and the IWA (@iwa-uk.bsky.social), with support from British Waterways, the canal was restored and re-opened in 1964.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

🧵1/4 When I expressed concerns about CRT funding to my MP, he cited the National Trust as something the CRT should learn from, which is of course utter tosh. The NT was persuaded to take on the south Stratford Canal in 1960... #boatlife #ukcanals #narrowboat #KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a narrowboat in a lock on the Stratford Canal. On a low wall in the foreground, a plaque reads, "THE NATIONAL TRUST The new top gate to this lock 21 was provided in 1982 with the aid of a legacy from Robert Aickman (1914-1981), founder of the Inland Waterways Association". In the background behind the wall stands an early-19th century canal engineering works building.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

And whilst I'm on the subject of ineptitude, I don't run my fridge, so when I have food that needs to be kept cool, I'll place it in the engine bay overnight. Forgot I did that yesterday and did a 2-hour trip today. That's a quiche that will be going straight into the food bin 😠

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Ah, yes. They don't half wind on tight, don't they? I had an audience when that happened to me.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Ouch! That's not good, though you can't predict a rope beneath the surface (unless it's your own, left trailing; I've got a T-shirt for that too). Leaving the fenders down in a narrow lock was my own rookie fault. I'd like to say I learned a lesson that day, but alas...

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

It was the day I had completed the 21-lock Hatton flight, though that was made a whole lot easier by buddying up with a crewed boat and then vlockies. Still, it had been a long day, and I was really looking forward to stopping.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Ghosts 👻 Inaugural trip, Devizes to Gloucester the long, estuary-free way 3+ years ago, at the end of an 8-hour cruise, just turned off the Grand Union with its wide, fender-unfussy locks and promptly got wedged in this look 🫣 #boatlife #ukcanals #narrowboat #KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a rural canal lock in bright sunlight on a patchy cloud spring day, watched over by a bench unoccupied by anyone, except perhaps the couple in whose memory it is dedicated.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Thank you 🙂 So far, so good. Made it along the Coventry, Birmingham & Fazeley and Birmingham & Warwick Junction Canal to the Grand Union since then. Having a two-week pause before heading onto the north Stratford. We'll see how it goes 🤞

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Joys of boating at the bottom end of the market – an account of the first day of a very nervous journey up the Severn from Gloucester published in Cotswold Life magazine a while back. #boatlife #ukcanals #narrowboat #KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/magazines/co...

greatbritishlife.co.uk

Travelling on a narrowboat along the River Severn

The mighty River Severn proves to be a challenging mistress as plucky little narrowboat Jimbo ventures upriver from Gloucester

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Deer here appear to be completely unversed in water safety. Something looking suspiciously like a less fortunate one was floating down the canal a few days after this incident, and this morning another one was carried bleating to a field by another boater who had just fished it out of the canal.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

11/11 Great vid 👍 Reminds me of the excitement of my first days of boatlife 😀 I'll crawl back into my geek cave now

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

10/11 The name Llangollen for today's waterway was a modern intervention, applied as a branding exercise by British Waterways as the second age of canals repurposed as leisure amenity got underway. It was BW who also added the W suffixes to bridge numbers east of Frankton Junction.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

9/11 The Montgomery Canal is the subject of ongoing restoration, and well worth a visit. The emphasis placed on protecting the ecology of the Monty means mooring is limited and no more than 12 visitors are allowed on it at any given time.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

8/11 The Llangollen's other function as a supply of water to Nantwich and Crewe saved it from being lost to navigation in the 20th century. The beginning of the half-completed section to Shrewsbury below Frankton Locks is now lying derelict.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

7/11 The Ellesmere Canal's difficulties and consequent connections to the Chester Canal saved the Chester Canal, the only pre-canal mania waterway to fail, and the two companies soon merged, the new company then later becoming part of the Shropshire Union.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

6/11 This is why bridge numbering changes at Frankton. It starts with bridge 1 at Hurleston and reaches 69 at Frankton Junction. That sequence continues into the 70s heading south, down what is today the Montgomery Canal, while bridge numbering on the Llangollen east of the Junction restarts at 1.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

5/11 What was originally planned to be a branch from Frankton east via Ellesmere to Whitchurch was extended to join the Chester Canal at Hurleston. This, along with what was originally planned as a branch of the Ellesmere Canal from Frankton to Llanymynech, became the revised main line.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

4/11 The canal that was built south from Trevor was originally planned to reach Shrewsbury via Frankton, and that was to be the main line, but less than half that line was built from Frankton before work on that section was abandoned as uneconomic, well short of Shrewsbury.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

3/11 The originally planned route from the Mersey to Trevor at the north end of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was only completed as far as Chester, where it joined the Chester Canal, with a small branch to the River Dee.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

2/11 What was originally the Ellesemere Canal was planned to link the River Mersey to the River Severn, but a lot of it was never built. What is now the Llangollen is mainly just the middle section of what had been planned.

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