Beyond Woolsthorpe the towpath is again surfaced all the way to the A607 on the outskirts of Grantham. Within the environs of Grantham there is a mixture of grass and tarmac. This section does however contain two original 1790s bridges, both listed, together with perhaps the most significant, if not the most obvious, engineering feature […]

The whole of this section from Redmile to Woolsthorpe is a footpath and, as it crosses this last part of Leicestershire and enters Lincolnshire, the canal takes on what must be something like its original atmosphere. There are long open stretches of water with the appearance of being navigable and several high, arched bridges, with […]

The village of Harby lies on a ledge below the steep Belvoir escarpment to the south, but is sufficiently elevated to give wide views northwards over the Vale. Quite apart from frequenting the inn, there is much else to see in the village, A Harby was spelt with a `d’, that is `Hardebi’, in the Domesday Book […]

The name Hickling had evolved from the Saxon ‘Echelinge’ into Hikelinge by the time of the Domesday Book. The village is basically linear in layout stretching southwards at right angles to the canal, and larger than it appears from the towpath, with many attractive houses. Only the Plough Inn remains out of four which were […]

The sound of modern traffic on the Fosse Way serves only to confirm the farsightedness and skill of the Roman surveyors. The road that they planned and built here was amongst the first of the major British Roman roads, from Lincoln to Seaton and the port of Exeter in faraway Devon. Following the first ‘push’ […]

The canal began at the now restored lock [L1] by the Trent A, situated only yards from Lady Bay Bridge. The embankment here also forms part of the Trent Valley Way, which starts a few miles to the west of Nottingham and follows the river for 84 miles to West Stockwith. River currents often made entering […]