Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ing a stone dating it at 1650. Charles II stayed here in 1651. These days it is a Lancashire
Education Authority youth club training centre.
Warton Crag towers high above with Warton at its base, including the 15th century tower
of St Oswald's church, which has stars and stripes on the coat of arms of the family ancestors
of George Washington, interestingly preceding their use in the American flag.
Signposts on the canal point not only along the water channels but also to town centres and
features of interest, as does the one by the playground in Carnforth. Carnforth is very much
a railway centre, the point where the Furness and Leeds lines depart from the West Coast
Main Line. Steamtown was one of the last depots servicing steam engines during the change
to diesels in 1968 and is a railway museum with over 30 steam locomotives including one of
the most famous, the
Flying Scotsman
, signal box, turntable and narrow- and standard-gauge
lines. In 1945 the station was used as the location for filming
Brief Encounter
, adapted from
Noel Coward's
Still Life
.
Rennie's masterpiece, the magnificent Lune Aqueduct, carries the canal over the River Lune in Lan-
caster
.
The A6 and then the railway crowd in on the canal. There are fine views past a caravan site
and out over the wide expanse of Morecambe Bay to the southern fells of the Lake District.
Inevitably, this section of canal is exposed to westerly winds.
The canal meanders past wooded hillsides and parkland at Bolton-le-Sands, the Royal
Hotel and the Packet Boat Hotel by a former wharf.
