Coventry Canal - Route in Detail

Route in Detail

The canal starts at Coventry Canal Basin. The basin was opened in 1769 and expanded in 1788. It is situated just north of Coventry City Centre and just outside the city's inner ring road. Many of the buildings and the site were restored between 1993 and 1995. The Canal Bridge, Canal House and the warehouses are grade II listed buildings. All boats going in and out of Coventry Canal Basin have to pass through the Canal Bridge.

From the canal basin, the canal meanders north through Coventry passing under many road bridges including prominent hump-back bridges under the Foleshill Road, Foleshill through Little Heath and the Longford Road, Longford. Five miles north of Coventry, at Hawkesbury Junction, a superbly preserved iron bridge crosses the start of the Oxford Canal, which journeys southwards to join the River Thames at Oxford. At Hawkesbury Junction there are some fascinating buildings from the working days of the canal, and the Greyhound pub is a traditional stop for boaters. Hawkesbury Junction is also known to regular boaters as Sutton Stop, though strictly this refers to the stop lock, a short distance along the Oxford Canal.

A few miles north of Hawkesbury, just outside Bedworth, is Marston Junction, where the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Canal starts its meandering, rural and lock-free journey towards the former coal mines at Moira; although it is now navigable only for 22 miles to Snarestone.

From Marston Junction, the Coventry canal runs north-west through Nuneaton, Atherstone and Polesworth, to Tamworth.

In a suburb of Tamworth, at Fazeley Junction, boaters can turn west towards Birmingham along the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal.

The Coventry canal continues northwards to end at Fradley Junction where it joins the Trent and Mersey Canal. From Fazeley to a point halfway to Fradley, maps show the canal as the "Birmingam, and Fazeley canal" (see History).