Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The great warehouse in Blisworth
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Although the walking route is not marked, it is followed by a road for most of the way,
although visibility is not good and there is no footway. At intervals there are tall brick vent
columns, the tunnel having been built originally from 19 shafts lined up on Stoke Bruerne
church tower, plus the end portals. These construction shafts were reopened after two boat-
men suffocated in 1861 following a collision and five children had to be revived after a trip
through in 1896, after which women and children were required to walk over. Towards the
southern end the road bends right and a track ahead descends to the canal. On the way it
passes through an embankment that once carried a tramway from Tiffield to Roade. Before
the tunnel was built there was a tramway connecting the two canal ends, the first iron railway
in the south of England.
At the southern portal, one of the concrete lining rings has been set into the sloping bank to
show the size to the hordes of spectators visible on any summer weekend, this being the start
of Stoke Bruerne. Split by the canal, this is probably the country's best example of a canal
village. Built in brown Blisworth limestone, the village had a boat children's school; Sister
Mary Ward had a boat people's surgery for 30 years until the mid 1950s; and it was the site
of what was probably England's last handmade ropeworks.
Stoke Bruerne Waterways Museum is located in a restored 1840s stone cornmill, used
until 1913. Opened in 1963, it was Britain's first canal museum, displaying boats, engines,
costumes, documents, photographs, paintings, models, a cabin, cabinware, china, utensils,
brasses and signs. The museum shop is in an old beam engine house. The Old Chapel Gallery
and Crafts Gallery is a museum of rural life and shows the work of up to 60 artists using
wood, jewellery, ceramics and textiles. Rookery Open Farm, set up for children, is close by.
There are tea rooms in old boat horse stables. The Boat Inn has been run by the same fam-
