canalboat.co.uk Canal Boat January 2018 515 MILES / NO LOCKSNEWBOLD STRETTON UNDER FOSSE
8boaters wishing to stock up on provisions
will find a large supermarket and retail
centre. From bridge 58 you can take a long
walk or a bus to Rugby Town Centre with
its many attractions, several related to its
role as the birthplace of rugby football.
These include the famous public school
founded in 1567 which has its own
museum (see inset) and the statue of
William Webb-Ellis who, according to
tradition, picked up a football and ran
with it in 1823. While you’re there, don’t
miss Rugby’s Art Gallery and Museum.
Back at the canal, a waterside pub
stands next to the weeded-up Brownsover
Arm, a remnant of the canal’s earlier
route. A little further on you will pass an
aqueduct followed by a superb Horseley
Ironworks bridge that spans the navigable
Rugby Wharf Arm, another surviving
fragment of the original canal.
Next comes Newbold Tunnel which was
built in the 1830s, replacing the originalstructure whose entrance can still be seen
in a field behind the church in the village.
The present tunnel has a towpath on each
side, and its interior has been illuminated
with bright coloured lighting. Just before
the tunnel there a pubs a few yards from
the towpath (it faces the canal’s original
route) and a popular fish and chip shop in
the nearby village.
For the next few miles the canal passes
through lovely countryside with woodedThe duplicated Hillmorton Locks
Brownsover, just east of Rugby Leaving Newbold TunnelNEWBOLD TUNNEL