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Our mooring at Hatton
station – no boats in sight either way – just as we like it
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It was forecast to be hot
and muggy on Wednesday afternoon which meant we wouldn’t be doing a lot because
of Buddy. So, to make the most of being
moored by a station, Buddy and I took the train to Warwick for the
morning. He was as excited as ever when
we got to the station. There are several
reasons he gets excited: he knows we meet people from the train sometimes,
especially Karen; he seems to really enjoy train journeys; trains have carpets
which are great for rolling on and most of all trains have crumbs.
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No carpet on this train
but he’s found some crumbs!
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We walked to the castle
first but decided not to visit as it was full of school parties. The best view of the castle is from the river
Avon that runs through the town. It is
the same river Avon that we were on in May and June this year on the navigable
section between Stratford and Tewkesbury.
There are ambitious plans afoot to continue the navigation up to Warwick
and form a link with the Grand Union canal.
One of the pleasant things
about Warwick is that there are lots of little green squares which are really
peaceful.
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Sitting in one of the
green spaces
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Although the town walls
were removed long ago, the original three gates are still in place. The east and west gates have early Victorian
pillar boxes by them. These are quite
celebrated as they were made in the style of Doric columns.
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One of the Doric styled Victorian
pillar boxes
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The east gate
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West gate under repair –
pillar box handy for leaning equipment against
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The north gate has a
church attached to it (apparently the gate was rebuilt in the early 1400s when
the church was built)
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Like many old towns, there
is a mixture of old and contemporary housing.
The houses known as Leycester (old spelling of Leicester) Hospital date
from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and were originally halls for local
guildsmen. They were obtained by the
Earl of Leicester in 1571 who endowed them as homes for retired servicemen and
their wives and they are still used for the same purposes today.
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The houses known as
Leycester Hospital (apparently there was never anything medical or
hospital-like here)
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Some other old
buildings
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The streets are a mixture
of narrow alleys and broad market squares
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Feeling quite continental
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On our way back to the
station we passed an old gasworks built in 1822 that has now been converted to
flats. It was one of the first gasworks
to be built in the world and the two octagonal towers housed the gasometers –
the towers are original as they were built, with false windows, to hide the
gasometers.
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Gasworks opposite the original end of the Saltisford
arm
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The Saltisford arm is a branch off the Grand Union canal that used to run into Warwick - the first section is still in water and used for moorings and a boat yard. One of our earlier blog entries covered the original route and some of the old structures that can still be found amongst the modern buildings.
The last thing we saw was
a door from an original cell from the county gaol built in 1695. This part of the wall still exists, hence
this door, but the rest of the building has been long demolished.
Judith, my sister, and
Nigel popped over to the boat during the afternoon so we had a catch up over tea and made
plans for going camping in the Yorkshire Dales in August.
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One of our tomato plants
bearing fruit for our daily salads
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