Anglo Welsh’s top 5 Mother’s Day trips afloat

This Mother’s Day, why not spoil your Mum with a relaxing day afloat, enjoying a posh picnic afloat or stopping off for a pub lunch along the way?

Anglo Welsh offers day boat hire from five of its bases, from less than £10 per person. Full tuition is included, so if you’re new to narrow boating, you can get the hang of steering, mooring up and working the locks.

Boats are equipped with cutlery, crockery and a kettle and most day boats also have a toilet, cooker and fridge.

Here are our Top 5 Days Out Afloat for 2017:

1. Glide across ‘The Stream in the Sky’ – from our canal boat hire base at Trevor on the Llangollen Canal in North Wales, it’s less than 10 minutes by water to the incredible World Heritage status Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, also known as “The Stream in the Sky”. At over 38 metres high and 305 metres long, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is truly one of the wonders of the waterways, offering stunning views of the Dee Valley below. After travelling over the Aqueduct, boaters can turn at Froncysyllte and head back across, travelling on to the ancient Welsh town of Llangollen in two hours. Day boaters can moor up in Llangollen Basin to explore the town and visit Plas Newydd house and gardens and enjoy lunch at the Corn Mill, with stunning river and mountain views. Day boat hire from Trevor starts at £120 for up to 10 people, £160 on weekends and bank holidays.

2. Explore Shakespeare countryside – from Wootton Wawen on the Stratford Canal near Henley-in-Arden, boaters can head south, crossing the Edstone aqueduct, to the pretty village of Wilmcote, a journey that takes around 2½ hours. Here, day-boaters can moor up above Wilmcote Top Lock and take a short walk into the village to enjoy lunch at The Mary Arden Inn or the Masons Arms, and a visit to the childhood home of Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden’s Farm. Day boat hire from Wootton Wawen starts at £99 for up to 10 people, £140 on weekends and bank holidays.

3. Cruise the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal – from Great Haywood on the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal near Stafford, day boaters can cruise to the historic market town of Rugeley and back, passing the National Trust’s stunning Shugborough Estate, with beautiful Georgian Mansion house, walled garden and rare breeds farm, as well as and the delightful Wolseley Arms pub at Wolseley Bridge. The journey to Rugeley and back takes a total of six hours. Day boat hire from Great Haywood starts at £99 for up to 10 people, £140 on weekends and bank holidays.

4. Cruise along ‘The Shroppie’ to Hack Green – from our base at Bunbury Wharf on the Shropshire Union Canal near Tarporley, cruise north for nine picturesque miles, past Barbridge and the canalside Barbridge Inn, through Nantwich and over the Nantwich Aqueduct, to a mooring and turning place just above Hack Green Locks. Here it’s a short walk to the Hack Green Nuclear Bunker, a vast underground complex which remained a secret for over 50 years, now a fascinating visitor experience. Day boat hire from Bunbury starts at £99 for up to 10 people, £140 on weekends and bank holidays.

5. Travel through rural Worcestershire – from Tardebigge on the Worcester& Birmingham Canal near Bromsgrove, cruise north to Kings Norton Junction, passing through fields, woods and three tunnels, including Wast Hills Tunnel, one of the longest in the country. The route, which covers a total of 16 miles there and back, takes boaters past a choice of waterside pubs, including the Weighbridge at Alvechurch and the Hopwood House at Hopwood. There are no locks on this journey, which takes around three hours each way. Day boat hire from Tardebigge starts at £99 for up to 10 people, £140 on weekends and bank holidays.

To book an Anglo Welsh Day Boat call our friendly booking team on 0117 304 1122.

Save £250 on Summer School Holidays with Anglo Welsh

Say hello to Harry Potter, Thomas the Tank Engine and Naked Mole-rats!

Ask a canal enthusiast how they first got hooked on narrowboats and the answer will most likely involve reminiscences about family holidays when they were a child. There is definitely something magical about hazy summer days on the UK’s historic waterways.

As a family-friendly company, Anglo Welsh has always offered good value getaways for school holidays. The latest example is our 2017 ‘Summer Holiday’ promotion on holidays departing between 14th July and 1st September – book before 28th February and you could save £175 off a short break or as much as £250 off a week’s holiday.

The magic of canal boat holidays casts an everlasting spell. Children never forget navigating on the water, picnicking on deck, feeding the ducks and telling dad how to steer. And when it’s time for an adventure on dry land, Anglo Welsh’s 11 bases and 10 canal circuits offer easy access to some of Britain’s most popular family attractions.

Alton Towers is close to canals near our Great Haywood base and has all the ingredients for a memorable day out – rollercoasters, water coasters, runaway trains, enchanted forests and sensory gardens. Nearby Drayton Manor Park is located in acres of beautiful parkland and boasts an equally mouth-watering range of attractions. It even offers rides on Thomas the Tank Engine at his permanent home in Thomas Land.

Anglo Welsh doesn’t offer train rides from Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross but our narrowboats can transport you along the Thames to Oxford, a must visit destination for any Harry Potter fan worth their Shimmering Silver Salt Drops.

First stop in Oxford has to be the ‘real’ Great Hall inside Christ Church College, reached via that most famous of cinematic stairways. Other magical Oxford locations include Bodleian Library, aka the Hogwarts Infirmary, and Duke Humfrey’s reading room where Harry dons his invisibility cloak to seek clues about the Philosopher’s Stone. Wizards and Muggles are equally welcome at Anglo Welsh’s Oxford base on the River Thames!

There are no hippogriffs or house-elves at Chester Zoo but the UK’s most visited zoo is home to 15,000 animals and 500 different species, including Asian elephants, Andean bears, Sumatran tigers and the scary looking naked mole-rat, who we hasten to add is no relation to the loveable water voles who build their nesting chambers in steep canals on the nearby Shropshire Union Canal.

Birmingham Sea Life Centre is another destination with the wow factor for animal-loving kids. Encounter sharks, penguins, stingrays and a giant green sea turtle in the UK’s only 360° Ocean Tunnel, where you can get closer than ever to incredible creatures and be transported to life beneath the ocean’s waves – without the need for a snorkel! And it’s just 5 hours and no locks from our base at Tardebigge.

For the budding scientists in your family, At-Bristol Science Centre joins the dots between science, arts and culture with live shows and hands-on exhibits. Close to moorings on the Kennet and Avon Canal, At-Bristol uses cutting-edge multimedia to inspire the next generation of Einsteins and boasts the UK’s only 3D ultra-high definition Planetarium where visitors can fly through the universe from the comfort of their own seats.

Anglo Welsh has provided great family holidays for over 40 years and many of the children who first discovered the joys of the waterways with their parents now come back every summer with their own offspring. Given the natural wonders of our canals and the proximity of so many world-class attractions en route, who can blame them?

To save up to £250 on your School Summer Holidays call our Booking Team on 0117 304 1122 and quote ‘Summer Holiday’. Offer available on holidays departing 14th July – 1st September that are booked before 28th February 2017.

Canals and Culture – Anglo Welsh’s prime destinations for lovers of the arts

Cultural Canal Boat Holiday Getaway Destinations

For many people, cruising along a peaceful canal surrounded by picturesque countryside is the perfect antidote to the hubbub of modern life, but if your personal recipe for relaxation also involves immersing yourself in the arts, Anglo Welsh Narrowboat Holidays offers the perfect cultural pit stops.

Oxford, Bath and Stratford-upon-Avon are just three of the outstanding destinations on Anglo Welsh circuits that provide fabulous opportunities to moor up and explore some of the UK’s cultural jewels.

A leisurely three-hour cruise from our Witney base on the Thames, Oxford is a city that has captured the artistic imagination for centuries. The ‘City of Dreaming Spires’ boasts 1,500 listed buildings from every major period of British architectural history and the centre looks like an enchanted fairy tale city – one of the reasons it has inspired so many writers and film directors.

Oxford is flat and compact with many of its major attractions – the University of Oxford and its 38 colleges, Bodleian Library, Oxford Castle – located right in the centre, which makes it the perfect destination to explore on foot.

The Ashmolean Museum’s world famous collections range from Egyptian mummies to contemporary art. This year’s must-see exhibition, Degas to Picasso – Creating Modernism in France (February 10th – May 7th), features over 100 works that have never been seen in Britain before. The exhibition plots a course from Romantic artists such as Ingres and Delacroix via the dramatic artistic transformations of Van Gogh and Cézanne to the radical experiments in Cubism by Picasso and Braque.

The Oxford Festival of Arts (June 4th – July 8th) is a two-week celebration of culture and the arts in venues throughout Oxford. The Festival programme presents an exciting array of high quality events, with a colourful mix of music, literature, theatre, art, speaker events, workshops and much more.

The World Heritage City of Bath is another year-round cultural hotspot. Just five minutes from Anglo Welsh’s Sydney Wharf base are visitor moorings in the heart of the city – a stone’s throw from Bath Abbey with its unique Victorian Gothic architecture and the historic Roman Baths.

The 2017 Bath Bachfest (February 16th – 18th) is the sixth annual celebration of the music of J S Bach and his Baroque contemporaries. The festival has rapidly become a firm fixture in the musical calendar, earning critical acclaim and loyal audiences. This year the final evening concert takes place in Bath Abbey and will present an all-Bach programme, book-ended by two of his most loved works: the Third Brandenburg Concerto and the Magnificat.

On a more frivolous note, the Bath Comedy Festival (April 1st – 17th) gets bigger and better every year and comics don’t get bigger than Have I Got News for You star Paul Merton, who opens the Festival on Saturday 1st April in the glorious, 1930s surrounds of the beautiful art-deco Bath Forum.

Reverting to more highbrow pastimes, this year’s Jane Austen Festival (September 8th – 17th) is celebrating the novel Northanger Abbey. Before that, the venue for the pre-festival Summer Ball on July 1st is the historic Banqueting Room at Bath’s Guildhall.

Shakespeare is to England what Mozart is to Austria or Tolstoy to Russia – the country’s cultural giant; and nowhere is better for tracing the giant steps of the Bard than Stratford-upon-Avon, a pretty journey along Stratford Canal from Anglo Welsh’s bases at Wootton Wawen or Tardebigge.

Moor on the River Avon close to the famous Swan Theatre to explore Stratford-upon-Avon’s quaint side streets with many surviving buildings that would have been familiar to Shakespeare, including his own birthplace and the romantic Anne Hathaway’s Cottage.

Among the 2017 highlights at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is the epic political tragedy Julius Caesar (March 3rd – September 9th). Following his sell-out productions of Oppenheimer and Don Quixote, director Angus Jackson steers the thrilling action as the race to claim the empire spirals out of control.

A new permanent exhibition at The Swan Theatre, The Play’s The Thing, offers a magical journey through 100 years of theatre-making in Stratford-upon-Avon. Discover rarely-seen treasures from the theatre’s archive: exquisite costumes, amazing model-boxes and weird and wonderful props.

If all that sounds a bit hectic and you prefer to spend your holidays away from the crowds, you can always relax on board with your favourite Jane Austen novel, download Bach on your tablet or watch a Shakespeare play on a flat-screen TV. If you have the cultural taste buds, Anglo Welsh has the technology!

To book a holiday or break on any of Anglo Welsh’s fleet, call our friendly booking team on 0117 304 1122.

Spotlight on the Canals – The Oxford Canal

Meandering waterways, peaceful villages and scenes from Harry Potter

The picturesque 77-mile long Oxford Canal was completed in 1790, linking the university City of Oxford and the River Thames, with the Cathedral City of Coventry at Hawkesbury Junction.

Following the contours around hills, rather than using cuttings and embankments like later canals, this largely rural waterway meanders gently through the countryside, dotted with pretty villages, rural pubs, black-and-white lift bridges and nature reserves.

Once the main transport route from the Midlands to the south of England, it’s now one of the most popular and beautiful canal boat holidays routes.

Best for beginners

From our Oxford base, a trip to Lower Heyford and back is the perfect mid-week or week-long break for beginners.

Setting out from our boatyard on the River Thames at Eynsham, near Witney, it’s a delightful three-hour cruise along the River Thames to Oxford.

At Isis Lock, transfer onto the Oxford Canal, moor up for the night near Hythe Bridge, and it’s a short walk to many of this historic city’s famous landmarks, including the Ashmolean Museum and Carfax Tower.

If you are a Harry Potter fan, several scenes from the movies were shot in Oxford, including the Hogwarts Sanatorium in Oxford University’s stunning Bodleian Library, and Hogwarts dining hall in Christ Church College’s dining hall, still used for meals by students today.

Travelling up the southern section of the Oxford Canal, boaters first pass through the historic suburb of Jericho, once an industrial area and now one of Oxford’s most sought-after residential areas.

Three miles later, the canal passes the Plough pub, and soon after travelling through Wolvercote Lock and Perry’s Lift Bridge, boaters can stop off to explore Oxey Mead nature reserve, an ancient floodplain meadow which dates back to before the Domesday Book.

The historic village of Kidlington is two miles further along, with shops, a post office, several pubs, including the canalside Highwayman, and the Grade I Listed St Mary’s Church with its striking 67-metre high spire.

A mile further along, boaters reach the pretty canalside hamlet of Thrupp, with its Jolly Boatman and Boat Inn, both serving good food and real ales. Soon after the waterway widens for a short time (Thrupp Wide), when it merges with the River Cherwell for a short while, before continuing to once again run closely by.

From Thrupp, it’s eight miles to Lower Heyford, passing through five locks, and a the villages of Shipton-on-Cherwell with its SSSI former quarry, known for its crocodile fossils, and Enslow, with its Rock of Gibraltar pub and Satellite Earth Station.

There are visitor moorings at Lower Heyford and a choice of places to turn. The Bell Inn offers good food and beer on tap, and the beautifully preserved 18^th century gardens at nearby Rousham House include cascades, a walled garden, parterre and pigeon house.

This journey, there and back, takes a total of 18 hours and travels through 28 locks

Best for experienced boaters

On a week’s break, experienced boaters can continue north a further 12 miles and eight locks to Banbury, passing through Upper Heyford with its popular Barley Mow pub, and Anyho with its Great Western Arms country pub, nestled between the canal and the railway and serving excellent food.

The medieval market town of Banbury with its famous neo-Gothic Cross has plenty of visitor moorings, many fine old pubs and Tooley’s Boatyard, the oldest working dry dock on the inland waterways, with a blacksmith’s forge and restored workshops open to visitors.

This journey takes a total of 29 hours, travelling through 32 locks

On a 10-day or two-week break, narrowboat holiday-makers can explore the rest of the Oxford Canal, reaching the village of Cropredy after a further five miles and three locks. The English Civil War Battle of Cropredy Bridge took place here in 1644, but today the village is best known for its annual music festival and historic country pubs, including the 17^th century Brasenose Arms.

Two miles further north, the canal passes close to the village of Claydon with its fascinating Museum of Bygones at Butlin Farm, and the Claydon Flight of five locks.

Next, it’s Fenny Compton with its tunnel, marina, Wharf Inn and Fenny Compton Tunnels nature reserve, with rare grasslands important for a range of wildlife, including the endangered Grizzled Skipper butterfly.

Eleven miles and nine locks later, the canal reaches its junction with the Grand Union Canal, at Napton on the Hill, with stunning views of Napton Windmill and the surrounding countryside, plus the Folly, Crown and King’s Head pubs for refreshment.

Joined for the next five miles with the Grand Union, here the Oxford Canal becomes a broad waterway. At the Braunston Turn, the Grand Union Canal splits away from the Oxford, heading south to London. For boaters continuing north along the Oxford Canal, there are places to moor for a visit to Braunston’s pubs, marina and fish and chip shop.

Now travelling along the North Oxford Canal, the waterway once again becomes a narrow canal and passes underneath the busy M45 motorway before reaching the village of Hillmorton, with its flight of three locks, plus Old Royal Oak and Stag & Pheasant pubs.

The canal next passes through the outskirts of Rugby, with a Tesco store and Cineworld nearby at Brownsover. The 186-metre long Newbold Tunnel, with Barley Mow and Boat pubs just before, takes boaters back out into the countryside.

Three miles later, it’s worth stopping at Brinklow to visit the remains of Brinklow Castle, a Norman earthwork motte and bailey fortress, and one of the village pubs – The Raven or White Lion.

Soon after, the canal passes beneath the M6 motorway before reaching the pretty canal village of Ansty with moorings and Rose & Castle pub. From here, it’s only another three miles to Hawkesbury Junction on the edge of Coventry, where the Oxford Canal meets its terminus at the Coventry Canal. There is a winding hole here, visitor moorings with a sanitary station and water point, plus The Greyhound and Elephant & Castle pubs.

This journey, there and back, takes a total of 77 hours, travelling through 84 locks

To make a booking or to get friendly advice on canal holidays, please call our Booking Office on 0117 304 1122.

All hands on deck for Anglo Welsh’s winter maintenance

All Hands On Deck At Anglo Welsh With Canal Boat Maintenance & Refurbishments  

Midwinter calm may reign on the nation’s waterways but behind the scenes at Anglo Welsh it’s all hands on deck as our fleet of 160 narrowboats undergo their annual makeover – ranging from major refurbishing and mechanical services to minor maintenance and cosmetic TLC.

The winter maintenance process at our eleven bases across England and Wales starts in November as trees shed their final leaves and continues right through to March as the dawn chorus springs into song. Jonathan Nowell, Anglo Welsh’s base manager at Tardebigge in Worcester, took a break from his maintenance chores to provide an overview of the nationwide refurbishment programme.

“The Anglo Welsh fleet has a diverse variety of narrowboats,” says Jonathan, “but whether it’s a luxury 12-berth Constellation Class or a cosy two-berth, they all go through the same well-tested maintenance process to make sure they are mechanically sound and immaculately presented for the new season.”

“We begin by draining the water tanks and blowing the water out of the water system to prevent winter freezing. Then all electrical items are removed and electrics isolated. As you would expect, the engine on every Anglo Welsh boat gets a thorough service – that involves straightforward tasks like changing oil and filters to bigger jobs like checking the rudder bearings and cleaning the bottom of the diesel tank.”

“When it comes to dry docking, work can involve replacing stern gears, propellers, and hull blacking. Anglo Welsh also does private work at our bases with covered dry docks like the one here at Tardebigge. We offer boat owners professional painting, engine servicing/replacements, welding, hull blacking, gas/diesel pump outs, electric works, plumbing, stern gear repairs, and gas works.”

“People who hire Anglo Welsh narrowboats rightly expect handsome, well-equipped boats for their canal holiday, so the winter maintenance is as much about creature comforts as the technical stuff. Sometimes we do a full repaint of the cabin, decks, roof and doorways, and vent holes. If a boat needs stripping back to steel, the painting alone can take up to 12 days!”

“Below deck, we’ll install new cookers, fridges, carpets, curtains, upholstery or mattresses where needed, and we’ll replace damaged cabin panels, doors, trims and steps. Not forgetting the all-important gas safety checks by our gas accredited engineers.

Last but not least, is the deep cleaning – washing curtains, bedding and upholstery; hoovering carpets, cleaning windows and shining the cutlery. It’s a bit like spring cleaning the house before guests arrive!”

In a nutshell, Anglo Welsh’s maintenance team does all the hard work in winter so you can enjoy a relaxing canal holiday on a comfortable narrowboat that is fine-tuned on the inside and spick and span on the outside.

To make a booking or to get friendly advice on canal holidays, please call our Booking Office on 0117 304 1122.

If you are a private boater and would like to find out about Anglo Welsh’s private maintenance service, call 0117 304 1122 for base contact information.

From Rio de Janeiro to Great Haywood – Olympian Nick Beighton’s canal adventures

What do you do after spending three years training six days a week in order to compete in the Paralympics? The answer, according to Nick Beighton, is “Go on a narrowboat holiday!!”

Former Royal Engineers captain Nick first took up rowing as part of his rehabilitation programme after losing both legs to a Taliban landmine in Afghanistan in 2009. He competed in the mixed scull at the 2012 Paralympics and won the bronze medal in the Men’s KL2 canoe sprint at the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro.

Back home after his Brazilian exploits, Nick decided it was time for some quality time with wife Alexis and son Jonah. “After Rio I was after a way to wind down with my family on a proper British holiday,” says the 35-year-old from Stockport. “Spending a week on a narrowboat seemed like the ideal solution! We were slightly apprehensive when we arrived at Great Haywood Marina, not really knowing what to expect as I’m a double above knee amputee and we have a 2-year-old son. What could go possibly wrong??!”

Happily, the answer to that latter question was ‘nothing at all’. “The Anglo Welsh staff were brilliant,” continues Nick. “After getting our kit on board and having a briefing it was straight off for a practice and a demo of how to navigate a lock. Having never helmed a narrowboat before it took a little getting used to, especially as we’d hired a 67ft barge called Oracle. Luckily, I’ve sailed a bit so it didn’t take too long to get familiar with the tiller. After being under way for about 20 minutes we were on our own!”

“Over the next five days we had a fabulous family holiday. First, we travelled down the Trent and Mersey Canal and a day-out at the National Memorial Arboretum. Then it was on to the Birmingham and Fazeley and a day at Drayton Manor Park to keep our son happy. We chose a route without too many locks to navigate and plenty of good canal side pubs to enjoy!”

“All in all it was a very enjoyable week,” concludes Nick. “We left relaxed and full of appreciation for the great service offered by everybody at Anglo Welsh.”

Our commitment… as a member of the Armed Forces you can benefit from 15% off an Anglo Welsh Holiday. Simply call 0117 3041122 and ask about our Armed Forces Discount.