London’s elementary canals For a stress-free way to travel across the capital, Jeremy Seal recommends its neglected waterways Sunday Times, 11/8/1996
Narrowboat Kingswood moved sedately across the North Circular aqueduct east of Alperton, London NW10, her horn hooting in undisguised triumph. Narrowboaters may not know much about canal rage - no surprise on traffic-free waterways where four miles an hour is positively haring - but they certainly enjoy a little poetic justice. Since roads had done for the working life of London's canals earlier this century and since we were looking down on exhaust-swathed gridlock 40 feet below us, poetic justice did not come much better than this. A sight to savour, we slowed to a gentle drift, brewed tea and broke out the chocolate chip cookies.
London's canals kick-started the Industrial Revolution, freighting bricks from Slough, stone from Yorkshire, pottery from Staffordshire, nails from Derby, salt from Cheshire and even ice from Norway only for rail and road to come along, hog the credit and put their watery forebears into premature retirement. Not that London's variously named canals - from west to east the Grand Union, the Grand Union (Paddington Arm) and the Regent's - need feel bitter; as the capital's tarmac arteries have clogged, so the canals have been reborn as beguiling backwater byways hemmed by the dapple of willow trees and the moulder of ageing factories.
Holiday canalling's traditional chugging grounds have always been rural. Over the years, however, it is as if occasional pioneers have happened upon London's network of canals and survived to return with tales of a world unto itself. In this strangely poetic canvas, old men emerge from the gardens of Perivale dragging watering cans on twine leads. They look like sadly deluded pet owners - until they cast their cans into the canal to fill them. A remote-control model powerboat buzzes a sentinel heron which scrambles awkwardly for the sky above Greenford. Distracted lovers amble along the tow-path while a white-bearded, turbaned Sikh intently watches the approach of narrowboats from a Southall bridge. The odd coconut floats by; West London's Hindus offer them to the gods of their temples whence they are consigned to the canal, a stand-in sacred river. And every now and then, a DIY Supercentre lumbers down to the water's edge as a reminder of the city, like the planes out of Heathrow and the tube trains blurring across bridges.
Urban canalling might well strike orthodox canallers weaned on the calm of the countryside as a holiday mismatch to rank alongside, say, stamp-collecting in Ibiza. It actually proves a shrewd combination, pepping up a canal holiday which might otherwise border on the somnolent while providing what must be the most relaxing experience of London available - and also the cheapest. As any estate agent will tell you, waterside locations command massive premiums, but narrowboats can moor almost as they wish along the canal, beneath signs that stop London drivers in their tracks reading 'Maximum Stay Without Charge: 14 Days'. After the laws at street level in the likes of N1 and W9, the canal code seems almost criminal in its generosity.
From Brentford in the west to Limehouse in the east, the canals describe an arc that is lazily mirrored by the Thames to form a circular 'ring' route that can be comfortably negotiated, river tides permitting and preferably travelling clockwise, over a long weekend. We took possession of the 48-foot Kingswood at Adelaide Dock in Southall. She was blissfully baffle-free, a four-berth floaterhome whose colourful, gypsy livery belied modern facilities including fridge, gas oven and hot shower, and not a complicated stop-cock in sight. And unlike traditional models, she had a cruiser stern, essential in providing outside space for the party to congregate in. Provisioning was equally straightforward; we found a Tescos near Junction 3 of the M4. It hove into view just ten minutes out of dock, complete with big-hearted signs ('Moorings for Customers only, Maximum Stay 24 hours'). All that was missing was a considerate man at the check-out offering to help us to our boat.
By Park Royal, a city dilapidation had invaded the landscape but even this provided memorable moments, like the ruins of an impossibly glamorous, shocking pink MG sports abandoned in a hedge. Elsewhere, coots and moorhens canalcombed among the flowering bindweed for scraps of plastic rubbish with which to decorate the front rooms of their nests, taking their queue from houseboat settlements whose pathside gardens were neatly arrayed with gnomes and, in one case, great herds of carved African antelope and elephant, a Sudbury Serengeti. Then the factories crowded in, nostalgic household names from another age queuing up close by the banks to testify to the canal's heyday. There was Lyons Maid, Heinz, Mother's Pride, Tetley and Mcvities - old factories playing olfactory torture with our spaniel as the merging scents of baked beans, coffee and fresh cookies feathered his raised muzzle.
We passed Wormwood Scrubs to lay up for the night within the lengthening shadows falling across Kensal Green cemetery. Access along several stretches of tow-path, the cemetery included, is restricted to narrowboaters, providing a safe haven from which they can come or go by means of a specially provided key. Eminent sense since narrowboats are not much more secure than tents - and nobody would camp out in some of the postal codes that the canal bisects. We slept safe, flanked by the august remains of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Thackeray and Trollope to our left, and the canalside Sainsburys at the bottom of Ladbroke Grove to our right. Owls called through the night; squabbling Canada Geese announced morning. Beyond the Westway, we emerged into the comparative hubbub of Little Venice and its handsome canal craft proudly topped with pots of pansies, geraniums and gardenias. Opposite London Zoo in Regents Park, graffiti hollered 'No zoo; Leave the animals alone, Freedom!', but on this warm spring afternoon, Arabian oryx and greater kudu didn't seem that bothered.
At Camden Lock, an impromptu audience that was large, curious and in parts drunk convened to watch us negotiate our first, unnerving lock. When a man shouted 'Your lower paddles are open', I checked my flies but what might have otherwise been a bizarre insult actually turned out to be helpful and essential canal speak. Shutting the lower paddles or sluice gates allowed the lock to fill and the Kingswood to pass on her way. It also stopped the entire canal system draining away.
In the afternoon, locking down through Islington and Hackney to the East End, a group of boys enfiladed us with well-aimed stones from behind a clump of bushes. For a moment, mugs of tea were scattered as the Regents Canal became the Mekong River. For the most part, however, the only attention we received was from budding, anoraked physicists giving gesticulatory demonstrations as we honed our procedure, raising and lowering paddles with the lock keys, and pushing gates into place. Gasworks towered above us. At Mile End Stadium, crowds of young girls were queuing along the pavement. 'It's Robbie from Take That and Damon from Blur,' a gaggle explained. 'They're playing football.' Then Canary Wharf appeared on the skyline and we emerged into the space of Limehouse Basin to sit drinking beers as the lights of the Docklands Light Railway threaded themselves across the night sky.
In the early morning, we were up for the tide. The Limehouse lock opened and spewed us onto the Thames which poured upstream like beaten gold in the sunshine. We shot past wharves and Parliament, tore under bridges, passed dredgers and police launches, and were at the entrance to the canal at Brentford in a little over two hours. On the short - but lock-busy - run back to Adelaide Dock, a lock repairer came over all lugubrious. 'You want to see the bodies that fetch up in here,' he said. 'Go down to the bottom for a few days, they do, then pop up like corks after a mashing in the sluice gates.' His words cast a chill over the afternoon, but only a brief one. Soon enough, we were passing under the M4. Traffic not moving either.
ENDS
FACT BOX;
Kingswood was provided by Anglo-Welsh Waterway Holidays who run a fleet of narrowboats from Adelaide Dock in Southall, West London where enquiries and reservations can be made on 0181 571 5678. The London 'ring' can be completed in a long weekend, tides permitting, or included in a more leisurely cruise over a week or more. Anglo-Welsh need to know in advance of those wishing to enter the Thames. All-inclusive prices (fuel, linen, basic starter provisions) from Friday afternoon to Monday morning for four-berth narrowboats range from £290 to £430, and from £500 to £800 for a week. Eight or ten berth boats cost from £382 for a weekend, and from £696 for a week.
Narrowboat Kingswood moved sedately across the North Circular aqueduct east of Alperton, London NW10, her horn hooting in undisguised triumph. Narrowboaters may not know much about canal rage - no surprise on traffic-free waterways where four miles an hour is positively haring - but they certainly enjoy a little poetic justice. Since roads had done for the working life of London's canals earlier this century and since we were looking down on exhaust-swathed gridlock 40 feet below us, poetic justice did not come much better than this. A sight to savour, we slowed to a gentle drift, brewed tea and broke out the chocolate chip cookies.
London's canals kick-started the Industrial Revolution, freighting bricks from Slough, stone from Yorkshire, pottery from Staffordshire, nails from Derby, salt from Cheshire and even ice from Norway only for rail and road to come along, hog the credit and put their watery forebears into premature retirement. Not that London's variously named canals - from west to east the Grand Union, the Grand Union (Paddington Arm) and the Regent's - need feel bitter; as the capital's tarmac arteries have clogged, so the canals have been reborn as beguiling backwater byways hemmed by the dapple of willow trees and the moulder of ageing factories.
Holiday canalling's traditional chugging grounds have always been rural. Over the years, however, it is as if occasional pioneers have happened upon London's network of canals and survived to return with tales of a world unto itself. In this strangely poetic canvas, old men emerge from the gardens of Perivale dragging watering cans on twine leads. They look like sadly deluded pet owners - until they cast their cans into the canal to fill them. A remote-control model powerboat buzzes a sentinel heron which scrambles awkwardly for the sky above Greenford. Distracted lovers amble along the tow-path while a white-bearded, turbaned Sikh intently watches the approach of narrowboats from a Southall bridge. The odd coconut floats by; West London's Hindus offer them to the gods of their temples whence they are consigned to the canal, a stand-in sacred river. And every now and then, a DIY Supercentre lumbers down to the water's edge as a reminder of the city, like the planes out of Heathrow and the tube trains blurring across bridges.
Urban canalling might well strike orthodox canallers weaned on the calm of the countryside as a holiday mismatch to rank alongside, say, stamp-collecting in Ibiza. It actually proves a shrewd combination, pepping up a canal holiday which might otherwise border on the somnolent while providing what must be the most relaxing experience of London available - and also the cheapest. As any estate agent will tell you, waterside locations command massive premiums, but narrowboats can moor almost as they wish along the canal, beneath signs that stop London drivers in their tracks reading 'Maximum Stay Without Charge: 14 Days'. After the laws at street level in the likes of N1 and W9, the canal code seems almost criminal in its generosity.
From Brentford in the west to Limehouse in the east, the canals describe an arc that is lazily mirrored by the Thames to form a circular 'ring' route that can be comfortably negotiated, river tides permitting and preferably travelling clockwise, over a long weekend. We took possession of the 48-foot Kingswood at Adelaide Dock in Southall. She was blissfully baffle-free, a four-berth floaterhome whose colourful, gypsy livery belied modern facilities including fridge, gas oven and hot shower, and not a complicated stop-cock in sight. And unlike traditional models, she had a cruiser stern, essential in providing outside space for the party to congregate in. Provisioning was equally straightforward; we found a Tescos near Junction 3 of the M4. It hove into view just ten minutes out of dock, complete with big-hearted signs ('Moorings for Customers only, Maximum Stay 24 hours'). All that was missing was a considerate man at the check-out offering to help us to our boat.
By Park Royal, a city dilapidation had invaded the landscape but even this provided memorable moments, like the ruins of an impossibly glamorous, shocking pink MG sports abandoned in a hedge. Elsewhere, coots and moorhens canalcombed among the flowering bindweed for scraps of plastic rubbish with which to decorate the front rooms of their nests, taking their queue from houseboat settlements whose pathside gardens were neatly arrayed with gnomes and, in one case, great herds of carved African antelope and elephant, a Sudbury Serengeti. Then the factories crowded in, nostalgic household names from another age queuing up close by the banks to testify to the canal's heyday. There was Lyons Maid, Heinz, Mother's Pride, Tetley and Mcvities - old factories playing olfactory torture with our spaniel as the merging scents of baked beans, coffee and fresh cookies feathered his raised muzzle.
We passed Wormwood Scrubs to lay up for the night within the lengthening shadows falling across Kensal Green cemetery. Access along several stretches of tow-path, the cemetery included, is restricted to narrowboaters, providing a safe haven from which they can come or go by means of a specially provided key. Eminent sense since narrowboats are not much more secure than tents - and nobody would camp out in some of the postal codes that the canal bisects. We slept safe, flanked by the august remains of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Thackeray and Trollope to our left, and the canalside Sainsburys at the bottom of Ladbroke Grove to our right. Owls called through the night; squabbling Canada Geese announced morning. Beyond the Westway, we emerged into the comparative hubbub of Little Venice and its handsome canal craft proudly topped with pots of pansies, geraniums and gardenias. Opposite London Zoo in Regents Park, graffiti hollered 'No zoo; Leave the animals alone, Freedom!', but on this warm spring afternoon, Arabian oryx and greater kudu didn't seem that bothered.
At Camden Lock, an impromptu audience that was large, curious and in parts drunk convened to watch us negotiate our first, unnerving lock. When a man shouted 'Your lower paddles are open', I checked my flies but what might have otherwise been a bizarre insult actually turned out to be helpful and essential canal speak. Shutting the lower paddles or sluice gates allowed the lock to fill and the Kingswood to pass on her way. It also stopped the entire canal system draining away.
In the afternoon, locking down through Islington and Hackney to the East End, a group of boys enfiladed us with well-aimed stones from behind a clump of bushes. For a moment, mugs of tea were scattered as the Regents Canal became the Mekong River. For the most part, however, the only attention we received was from budding, anoraked physicists giving gesticulatory demonstrations as we honed our procedure, raising and lowering paddles with the lock keys, and pushing gates into place. Gasworks towered above us. At Mile End Stadium, crowds of young girls were queuing along the pavement. 'It's Robbie from Take That and Damon from Blur,' a gaggle explained. 'They're playing football.' Then Canary Wharf appeared on the skyline and we emerged into the space of Limehouse Basin to sit drinking beers as the lights of the Docklands Light Railway threaded themselves across the night sky.
In the early morning, we were up for the tide. The Limehouse lock opened and spewed us onto the Thames which poured upstream like beaten gold in the sunshine. We shot past wharves and Parliament, tore under bridges, passed dredgers and police launches, and were at the entrance to the canal at Brentford in a little over two hours. On the short - but lock-busy - run back to Adelaide Dock, a lock repairer came over all lugubrious. 'You want to see the bodies that fetch up in here,' he said. 'Go down to the bottom for a few days, they do, then pop up like corks after a mashing in the sluice gates.' His words cast a chill over the afternoon, but only a brief one. Soon enough, we were passing under the M4. Traffic not moving either.
ENDS
FACT BOX;
Kingswood was provided by Anglo-Welsh Waterway Holidays who run a fleet of narrowboats from Adelaide Dock in Southall, West London where enquiries and reservations can be made on 0181 571 5678. The London 'ring' can be completed in a long weekend, tides permitting, or included in a more leisurely cruise over a week or more. Anglo-Welsh need to know in advance of those wishing to enter the Thames. All-inclusive prices (fuel, linen, basic starter provisions) from Friday afternoon to Monday morning for four-berth narrowboats range from £290 to £430, and from £500 to £800 for a week. Eight or ten berth boats cost from £382 for a weekend, and from £696 for a week.
