Stourport

Today is Sunday, so we are booked in to enjoy another traditional Sunday roast lunch, this time at the Stourport Royal British Legion Club. Sounds very fancy, but I think it’s the same as the RSL. We will see. It’s cool but sunny so a good day to venture out.

Stourport is at the junction of the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal, which we have been on for the past several days, and the Severn River. So far we have only traveled on canals, but tomorrow we will venture 7 miles along the River Severn until we reach the turnoff for the Worcester & Birmingham Canal which will then take us to the Droitwich Canal where we plan to leave the boat, in a Droitwich marina, for a couple of weeks while we hire a car and explore further south. 

I thought I would show you what it looks like when the boat is in a lock. These photos were taken coming into Kidderminster. The first photo is Southern Cross approaching the lock, with the gate shut and water rushing in to fill the lock to the high level.

Coming into the open lock, which is full of water (and autumn leaves…so pretty)

Here the water is rushing out the lower end, and the boat is steadily sinking into the lock.

Now the boat is almost at the lower level, ready to exit the lock at the new canal level.

This photo shows the empty lock after the boat has exited at the lower level. You can see the lock gate is still open at the front where the boat went through.

We then close the gates, make sure all the paddles are lowered, and make our way down from the lock to get back on the boat as it slowly moves away down the canal.

This bridge is built into the bedrock under these houses. It’s very unusual, normally the bridge just crosses the canal, sometimes with a road, sometimes with just a track for stock and walkers.

Even though we still have almost no reception at almost every place we have stopped, we have been out exploring, and even found another National Trust property to visit just a short walk from the canal. With a piano, and gluten free scones !