Saturday 7 October 2023

Wending to Wales: stats

Some stats from our trip to Llangollen and back.

385 miles, 314 locks (223 narrow locks and 91 wide ones)

Canals travelled on:

  • Grand Union
  • North Oxford
  • Coventry
  • Birmingham and Fazeley
  • Trent and Mersey
  • Middlewich Arm
  • Shropshire Union main line 
  • Llangollen
  • Montgomery
  • Prees Arm
  • Whitchurch Arm
  • BCN Old Main Line
  • BCN New Main Line
  • BCN Titford Canal
  • B&F Digbeth Branch
  • GU Digbeth Branch

The Llangollen was new water for Briar Rose but not for us, and the Titford Canal and Titford Pools was new water for all of us.


We went through the following tunnels:

  • Blisworth (twice)
  • Braunston (twice)
  • Newbold
  • Harecastle
  • Ellesmere (twice)
  • Chirk (twice)
  • Whitehouses (twice)
  • Cowley
  • Wolverhampton (really more like a long bridge)
  • Coseley
  • Summit
  • Ashted
  • Curzon Street (another bridge-like one)
  • Shrewley
In total, they add up to just over nine miles underground.

We did two major aqueducts, Chirk and Pontcysyllte, plus lots of small ones.

We went through the following counties:

  • Northamptonshire
  • Warwickshire
  • Staffordshire
  • Cheshire
  • Shropshire
  • Wrexham
  • Denbighshire
  • West Midlands

2 comments:

Nev Wells said...

Excellent stats a great cruise - what number of days was that taken over ?

Jim said...

Your list of counties traversed is a little confusing as you appear to have used differing definitions of what constitutes a county. Wrexham is only a "county" in administrative terms as its council has County Borough status. It is in the ceremonial county of Clwyd (which now exists only for ceremonial purposes) and in the historic county of Denbighshire.
However if you are using administrative counties as your definition then you can't include Northamptonshire, Cheshire or the West Midlands as none of these have county councils or county borough councils and administratively have been split into a number of "Districts".
I usually stick to historic counties (which have never been abolished - only their administrative arrangements were changed in 1974) in which case your list should omit Wrexham (which is in Denbighshire) and the West Midlands (,most of which is in Staffordshire or Warwickshire, although bits are part of Worcestershire.
The 1974 reorganisation of local government has a lot to answer for!