Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Atherstone claims the distinction of being 100 miles from London, Liverpool and Lincoln.
On Shrove Tuesday, hundreds of people play medieval football in the streets. There are no
rules and the shopkeepers take the precaution of boarding their windows.
Atherstone was the end of the Coventry Canal for a decade when the promoters ran out
of money. In 1778 the Oxford Canal was opened from Banbury, exerting pressure for the
Coventry Canal to be completed through to the Trent & Mersey Canal. The expensive but ne-
cessary flight of 11 locks lowered the canal by 25m. The locks are positioned close together
at first but become more widely spaced lower down.
Young cattle enjoy life at Hartshill
.
The railway crosses back near Grendon. Next to it is an obelisk to a chapel destroyed in
1538 in Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Polesworth has a Norman church with a 15th century abbey gateway, the disused Tudor-
style Nethercote School and a Victorian vicarage, incorporating part of an Elizabethan school
where Drayton and possibly Shakespeare were taught. Pooley Hall, among the trees, is a Tu-
dor brick mansion dating back to 1509, possibly the oldest occupied building in Warwick-
shire. Partly fortified, it has its own chapel inside.
A nearby memorial is to Pooley Hall Colliery men killed in the First World War. Pooley
Hall, Alvecote and Amington pits combined to form the North Warwick Colliery, which
closed in 1965. At this time coal was still being carried away by narrowboat.
Alongside a golf course the canal passes from Warwickshire into Staffordshire. On the oth-
er side of the canal are Alvecote Pools, flooded flashes resulting from mining subsidence. A
nature trail has 100 species of bird and 250 flower species.
