Bath from £400
During late eighteenth century ‘canal mania’, merchants wanted a safe way of getting goods between Bristol and London that avoided the English Channel and the risk posed to their coastal craft by storms, privateers and Napoleon’s navy. Their answer was chief engineer John Rennie’s 57-mile Kennet and Avon Canal, linking the navigable rivers Kennet at Newbury and Avon at Bath. Now fully restored, its flights of locks, aqueducts, tunnels, bridges, and cuttings, make it a picturesque feature of the West Country landscape, a leisure corridor where colourfully-painted ‘narrow boats’ ply its calm waters alongside walkers, cyclists and joggers on the towpath. We visit the highlights and admire the stunning engineering and architectural solutions to a tricky route, and can even, on pumping days, see Claverton or Crofton historic beam engines in operation.
PRICES
from Bath – 8 hours
£400 – 1-3 people
£425 – 4-6 people