Leicester

Here are a few impressions of Leicester itself away from the canal. Sadly, there were still some lockdown measures in places, so all museums, churches and similar places were still closed. It was a sightseeing tour of the outside spaces of Leicester only.

Shopping Street

Alice Hawkins - A leader of the suffragettes in Leicester

St Martins Square

Shopping Street

Medieval Guildhall

Leicester Cathedral

Jewry Wall - ruins of a Roman bath complex

Part of an old bridge nicely preserved

Some more parts of that same bridge


St Nicholas - the oldest church in Leicester

Bustling market

Building on the "Golden Mile" - an area of Indian jewellers and restaurants

Bridge in Abbey Park

River Soar in Abbey Park

River Soar in Abbey Park

Richard III

Mural on a university building - a strange mix of esoteric, spiritual and football

Leicester castle grounds - now a business school

Chapel in the castle grounds


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The "Great" Harecastle Tunnel ....

Image
... or so the guidebook calls it. I had done two difficult long tunnels on this journey already, Blisworth and Braunston. Both are "wide" tunnels, where two narrowboats can pass each other. I am not a big fan of long tunnels, so the prospect of going through an equally long tunnel (2675m), but with only one-way traffic, because it's so narrow was not something I was looking forward to. Unfortunately on the route up the Trent & Mersey, there is no other option. The Harecastle tunnel was built by the already mentioned canal pioneer James Brindley in the very early days of canal building. It was built for one narrowboat only. As it takes about 45 min to go through, this led to major congestion quickly. A second tunnel was built by Thomas Telford (another famous canal engineer of the later days) completed in 1827. The new tunnel included a towpath (now removed), but also only space for one narrowboat. The original tunnel suffered from subsidence and was subsequently c...
Read more

Successful weekend with some drama - Rickmansworth to Tring

Image
For the weekend I picked up my first crew, my friend Sabine, to make it all the way to the first "summit" of the GU in the Chilterns. There are lots of locks scattered in short distances in between all the way up. Sabine joined me early Friday afternoon and off we went - and got as far as the first lock ten minutes into the journey, when the engine cut out, just as I was in the middle of the lock entrance. Hm. Not good. We pulled the boat back out and tied up on the lock landing. On the first couple of attempts the engine wouldn't start again. Then it started OK, but cut out as soon as I put it into gear. I had no idea what the problem could be, let alone know how to fix it. Fortunately we were broken down just opposite a marina and found an engineer, who said that it's likely to be a fuel problem (water in the diesel) and that the fuel filter would need changing. But he said he had no time until possibly(!) later in the evening. Very encouraging, especially as t...
Read more

From quiet to bustling canal life - Blisworth to Braunston

Image
The first day of this part was a route with no locks, which I did in lovely sunny weather. Quite uneventful and relaxing. But the main features of this part of the journey are the Buckby (7) and Braunston (5) locks and the Braunston tunnel. Yes, another long tunnel. Hopefully the last one for quite a while. I tackled the Buckby locks on one day and the tunnel and Braunston locks the next day. Shortly before the Buckby locks there is a section where the canal is flanked by a high speed trainline on the left and the motorway on the right. I always find it curiously satisfactory when the slow route meets a fast route, like I know something that they don't. This time it was even more satisfactory, as my progress on the canal was actually faster than the traffic on the M1. I am faster than the lorries! Then I arrived at the Buckby locks. I saw from a distance that there was a boat in the lock mouth and it seemed stuck there. I had been hoping for another boat to share the lock...
Read more