A Narrowboat Holiday on England’s Canals

Disclosure: This post contains some affiliate links, which means if you purchase an item through these links, I’ll make a few cents at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog!

---

“This can’t be right?” We looked at each other questioningly. I was standing with my husband in what appeared to be a neighborhood street in a hamlet somewhere in the middle of the English countryside. We had followed signs for a pub from the canal where we’d left our boat and now we stood outside a house with a sign at the corner of the driveway that said “Old Olive Bush Pub.”

Then we spotted a sign hung haphazardly on an arched trellis entrance to the house’s backyard at the other end of the driveway. The sign read “Biergarten.” Walking toward the “beer garden” which had a hodgepodge of patio and lawn furniture with varying types of tent coverings, we now saw a TripAdvisor sticker on the house’s glass-paned back doors. I walked over to the door and tentatively pressed down on the handle, pulling one of the doors open. Despite all the evidence, I still wasn’t quite sure if I was about to walk into someone’s living room. But sure enough, inside there was a full bar and a few tables and a middle-aged woman behind the bar was chatting away with an elderly neighbor about next Sunday’s knitting circle. When the barkeep brightly turned her attention to us, we inquired about dinner. With a small reprimand that we should have called ahead because the kitchen wasn’t on yet as it was only just 5 pm, she suggested we take drinks out to the garden while we wait. She’d come get us when our dinner was ready. This is exactly the kind of experience I’d been hoping for when we booked a Narrowboat holiday.

After spending a week in Paris, we decided we needed to spend a few days in a more relaxing environment before returning home. We didn’t want to feel like we needed a vacation from our vacation. We wanted to be out in the countryside, far away from crowds, and with no tiring daily itineraries full of sightseeing. We’d considered a cottage getaway, but after seeing every single travel vlogging couple that we watch on YouTube do an English Narrowboat holiday, we thought why not try one ourselves. If they can do it, we probably could too! It would give us that countryside cottage feel, but we could see more than one place as we drifted slowly along a canal through the English countryside.

Choose a Canal, Find a Narrowboat

First we researched the different canal loops in the UK and which ones might take us by certain attractions. For example, the loop that travels through Bath would allow us to stop for the night in Bath and visit the Thermae spa. The Warwickshire loop would take us near Warwick Castle. We decided upon the canal that would take us near the castle. So, using a site called Drifters, which is like an Airbnb for narrowboats, we reserved a boat through Black Prince Boats that had a boat at a marina near Warwick.

So from Paris we took the Eurostar through the Chunnel to London, where we promptly took an overnight detour to Bath for the spa. The city happened to be in full midweek swing of the annual Jane Austen Festival, so we wandered the streets amidst men and women dressed in regency garb. 

The next morning we continued our train journey to Warwick where we spent a couple nights in the newly opened castle themed hotel, and finally Ubered out to a marina in Napton.

Before trains, the canals were once the transit system for goods. Horses would walk the path next to the canal (the towpath) and tow a barge along the water behind them. When the railways made the use of the canals obsolete, the canals were abandoned and fell into disrepair. That was until 1944, when a man named Tom Rolt wrote a book titled Narrowboat about a several month holiday he took with his new wife on the canals. The romanticism of the notion captured the nation. Since then the use of the canals has revived, but today rather than barges, the canals are full of long, narrow houseboats of live-aboards and holidayers.

Purchase Narrowboat by L. T. C. Rolt via Amazon | Bookshop

At the marina, we were introduced to our holiday home. She was 52 feet long, navy blue, and the name Lottie was painted in script on her bow. She was one of the Princess 4 Signature class Black Prince Boats. She was steered by a simple rudder pole on the back of the boat. This also meant she had no steering when in reverse.

Inside, the boat had two double beds, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a dining area. All the “rooms” sit on one side of the boat and a narrow walkway runs beside them from one end of the boat to the other.

After being handed the keys to Lottie, we were given a brief explanation about how a canal lock works by way of a diorama. Then our instructor boarded our boat and gave us just as much orientation as one can give in the brief time it takes to maneuver a 52 foot boat from the dock to the other side of the marina where we exited out onto the canal. At the exit, our instructor stepped off the boat onto the last pier and waved goodbye to us! We were on our own for the next two and a half days to make our way up and back along the canal.

We booked a 3-night, 4-day holiday, but what this actually amounted to was one and a half days out and one day to come back. We had picked the boat up on a Friday afternoon, which gave us an evening and Saturday to putter up the canal and Sunday to turn around and putter back so as to return the boat by Monday morning at 9am. We were on the Oxford Canal, and using Airalo for phone data, we were able to use the Open Canal Map app for guidance. We set a path that would take us from Napton, through Braunston, to Dunchurch Pools where we would turn around. You can walk the total distance we would float in less than a day as the boat actually putters slower than you can walk the towpath beside it.

Choose your Narrowboat Vacation Read

Like Tom Rolt, we too were honeymooning on this UK canal. Although I’d promised to minimize the literary travel during what was supposed to be a honeymoon… you know me, I just had to do a little search for books about narrowboating through the British countryside. I thought perhaps I’d find a cozy rom com to accompany me on my honeymoon, but what I actually found was a series of books by author Steve Haywood. I selected his Narrowboating Nomads and to my delight, found that Haywood writes like the Bill Bryson of narrow boating! They both write with the same dry wit and sarcasm, which I find very funny.

Purchase Narrowboating Nomads by Steve Haywood via Amazon

I particularly liked Narrowboating Nomads because Haywood is totally a literary traveler! He sprinkled in fascinating literary connections to locations he navigated through with his boat. In one instance, as Haywood is describing a certain lock known for being somewhat tricky and dangerous, he mentions that it also happens to be where one of the boys who inspired Peter Pan was drowned in possibly a gay lover suicide! (And it turns out if you Google the history of the family who inspired J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, it’s quite depressing overall, so maybe spare yourself and don’t do that. Ask me how I know…) At another point along a canal, Haywood takes a walk to a little-visited church where he explains that it’s here George Orwell was buried in a simple grave because he was an atheist and a friend had to call in a favor to get him buried in a church yard! And later Haywood moors up his boat to visit a house which may or may not have been the model for the drawing of Toad Hall from Wind in the Willows! (On a related note, I did not realize until now that the same illustrator made the drawings for Wind in the Willows as well as Winnie the Pooh!)

Tips for First Time Narrowboaters

Aside from the book being funny and full of literary travel nuggets, I also found it full of tips for first time canal boaters. Some of which I came to appreciate as I made my own journey in a narrowboat for the first time.

Be mindful when sharing a confined space with others.

The foremost of these tips was Haywood’s warning about living with another in a confined space.

“Being shoehorned into a small space 24/7 is a recipe for disaster. When you’re spending that amount of time together the potential for an argument is always there, lingering below the surface like a corroded landmine. […] we needed rules for moving about the boat. Firstly, there was to be no pushing or jostling for position under any circumstances.” ~ Steve Haywood, Narrowboating Nomads

This was one of those things I knew was coming in theory, but was ultimately glad to have been made mindful about. We quickly adapted to life in our narrow hallway, having to squeeze past one another, be strategic about opening the closet or bathroom doors as they completely blocked the hall, and generally stuck to one person in the galley at a time. Having been warned, we gave one another “grace and space,” as they say. But we also opted for as few days as possible for our first narrowboat holiday just in case we found this living a little too close. Luckily for us, we found it suited us just fine, but it was still good to have the reminder.

The ultimate narrowboat skill: maintaining a comfortable temperature.

The second, perhaps not tip, but similarity I noticed between Haywood’s journey and our own was the problem of maintaining a comfortable temperature inside the boat.

“Tending a fire though – knowing exactly how much coal, coke or wood to put on it to keep it burning until the morning – that’s a real talent. Being aware of how much air to feed it so as not to either asphyxiate it or burn it away too quickly; appreciating how to keep it glowing steadily during the day at a constant temperature, and then knowing how to get it blazing in the evenings when the temperature falls and the mists rise – well, this is the ultimate narrowboat skill.” ~ Steve Haywood, Narrowboating Nomads

While Haywood’s boat has a little wood stove for heating, our boat heated with oil and we simply had an on/off switch with no temperature control. We heated the boat until the inside got so hot we had to turn the heat off and let the boat cool back down. Before we left the marina, our instructors had told us that we would want to make sure the heat was off before we went to bed each night, otherwise we would overheat. This meant, however, that while my husband who is quite comfortable in frigid temperatures was fine, I woke up at 4 AM freezing each morning (we were holidaying in October, not the warmest month in England). So no matter what your heat source, it really did seem that maintaining a comfortable temperature in your boat really is the ultimate narrowboat skill.

Locks can take time, plan accordingly.

One of the most important things I learned from Haywood’s book is that locks can actually take HOURS to go through! Depending on if there are other boats waiting and you thus have to wait your turn. Or if the water in the lock is drained and you have to refill it before you can enter and then drain it again once you’re in it. And if you have to wait while multiple boats in front of you drain and refill the lock, you could be waiting a while. Especially if you happen to be at a stair lock (multiple locks one after another) because you have to wait for a boat to go all the way up or down. And you have to either fill all the locks or drain them depending on what direction you’re going and what state the lock is in when you get there.

After reading this and considering the limited time we had to go out and back before returning the boat, we replanned our route. Being on our honeymoon, we wanted to avoid stress if at all possible. We didn’t want to be caught in a situation where a lock took longer than expected and then we were stressing about having to cover ground after the understood curfew on the canal. We were asked by our boat rental to observe the Brit’s canal etiquette of not running your motor past moored boats between 8pm and 8am if possible. Despite not going as far as we originally intended, we were quite happy to have early evenings. We moored up somewhere in the middle of a sheep or cattle field, either walked to a nearby pub for dinner (the Open Canal Map app has an option for displaying nearby pubs) or used the galley to cook ourselves the pre-made meals we’d brought along, then settled in for the evening with a game we’d bought at a game shop in Bath.

(Hot Tip: This Kosmos Adventure Game takes 3 nights to play, perfect for a 3-night narrowboat excursion. Check out these other Adventure games, or if you’re a fan of escape rooms, KOSMOS EXIT games are a great option for travel because you throw them away after playing, which means you don’t have to pack them home!)

Braunston: the headquarters of narrowboating

For the majority of our voyage we puttered through countryside landscape, only passing another boat now and again. But our route led through one larger port, Braunston. Here the narrowboat traffic grew heavier and we even saw permanent looking houseboats that moored up next to cute fenced-in yards complete with garden sheds and seating areas where one might spend evenings relaxing in the garden.

I distinctly remembered what Haywood had written about Braunston. It’s essentially the headquarters of narrowboating, and Haywood is not particularly fond of the place.

“Braunston is often called the capital of England’s canal system and it’s not hard to see why. Positioned centrally on the system, with convenient access south via the Grand Union and the Oxford Canal, and north via Coventry and Birmingham, it’s a place that’s within easy reach of the greater part of the cruising network. As well as this it’s got a couple of long-established boatyards, more marinas than you can comfortably count, a couple of decent chandlers and a wide selection of good shops […]” ~ Steve Haywood, Narrowboating Nomads

Due to some annoyances stemming from having to get work done on his boat in Braunston as well as deal with the local ship licensing office, Haywood went on to say,

“I just never feel comfortable in Braunston, that’s what it comes down to. I never feel I can relax there. We have too much history, Braunston and I.”

Not having to stop for boat work or licensing, and wanting to moor ourselves somewhere in the countryside in the evening rather than near a populated center, we puttered quickly by Braunston on our way out. Although Haywood did go on to say that when he visited the town in autumn, he found the

“vibes seemed totally different and the place much more laid-back.”

We were passing through Braunston in October, so if the traffic we encountered was “laid-back” I didn’t want to know what it was like during the high season. On the other hand, I would have been happy to exchange the Fall rain storm we were stuck in for a bit more boat traffic. We had one lovely day on the canal weather wise before a storm rolled in and pummeled us with rain for our two remaining days on the boat. I will note that I was quite cozy and dry inside the boat while my husband sat outside in the rain, happy as a clam, driving the boat. But it was at night you really noticed the rain noisily pounding down on the metal boat roof mere inches above your head. So after two nights of poor sleep, I truly knew how Haywood felt when he wrote, “The rain in Braunston continued unrelentingly for the remainder of our stay.” It’s just that Haywood also described beautiful mornings on the canals in which he would drink his coffee while watching the morning mist lift to reveal the countryside. I had been naive enough to think that perhaps we would be lucky enough to experience this too, but it seemed October was perhaps not the best month weather-wise for narrowboating.

Winding Holes: The only place to turn a boat around.

There is only one very important piece of information I felt Haywood was remiss in never mentioning, and that is “winding holes”. Though to his credit, he did not often turn his boat around during his narrative. Luckily, we had learned about this from one of the many YouTube travel vloggers we watched before our journey. As canal boats are simply too long to swing about in the canals which are not as wide as the boats are long, there are specific points along the canals where the sides of the canal have been carved out to essentially make a “hole” wide enough for a boat to turn around. And luckily the Open Canal Map app shows exactly where these Winding Holes, as they’re called, are. So aside from shortening our route to avoid locks, we also had to decide at what Winding Hole we had to ultimately turn around and proceed back the way we came in order to return the boat on time.

On our return trip through Braunston we did actually venture into town, or the outskirts anyway. We arrived in Braunston just as the dinner hour was nearing, so we moored ourselves for the night about a mile outside of town and walked the towpath to The Boat House, a pub we found through our Open Canal Map app. Unfortunately it was too late in the day to visit Bottom Lock, which Haywood claims is “one of the best canal bookshops in the country.” By the time we finished dinner, the sun had set and we had to walk the towpath back to our boat in growing darkness. As it became harder and harder to tell where the edge of the path was and where the water began, we realized the early evenings and nights in we’d been keeping on the boat until now were definitely the way to go.

Speaking of pubs, however, our favorite one of the voyage ended up being the one we visited on our first evening, The Old Olive Bush. After being called into the dining room to find a little two-person table set with our dinners, we happily tucked in. As we ate, the adjoining room, which I believe was the owner’s living room, filled with the chatter of what seemed like the whole town coming for a pint before dinner. We enjoyed the strange little pub in the middle of nowhere (in the hamlet of Flecknoe, actually).  We then walked off our meal as we made our way back to our boat via a road with no shoulders that wound between crop fields. The sun was setting, making the sky a pretty pink and the fields streaked with gold. Only occasionally did we have to dive off the road to avoid the cars zooming along, not expecting canal boaters to have left their tow path. If living on a narrowboat meant nights like this, I could definitely see the appeal.

Haywood opens Narrowboating Nomads by explaining that he and his wife had rented a narrowboat many years before for vacation and fell in love with narrowboating. Since then, they had a boat built for them and then spent months at a time on it when they could get away from work. Now they were finally taking the leap of retiring and moving full time onto their little home on the canals.

Narrowboats in London

I wondered, as we set out on our first narrowboat adventure, if this would be the beginning of our own life-long passion for narrowboats and canals. Only time will tell, but I can say that we definitely weren’t done with narrowboats by the time we’d returned to terra firma, or more specifically, London. After returning our boat at 9am Monday morning at the Napton marina and getting a ride to the nearest train station, we’d been deposited back into the center of bustling London. After stopping at our hotel to revel in long hot showers without worrying our water tank would run low (we made the first-time narrowboating error of letting our water supply run too low for showers on our last morning!), we set out to spend the afternoon on London’s Regent’s Canal.

Word on the Water

If you don’t have time for a whole narrowboat holiday, or you find yourself in London longing to be back on a narrowboat, there is one boat on Regent’s Canal you can visit, and it happens to be a bookstore! Word on the Water is a permanent London fixture, a narrowboat moored in Regent’s Canal that has been transformed into a very cosy bookstore with new and used books and reading nooks. The classics shelf had some of the prettiest hardbound editions available, and the genres ranged all over, however the selection of books about narrowboating was surprisingly sparse. I was looking for any of Steve Haywood’s other books, but sadly went away empty handed.

The Narrowboat Pub

Within walking distance from Word on the Water, overlooking Regent’s Canal, is The Narrowboat Pub. Although not actually on a narrowboat, this is the pub in which Haywood and his wife had goodbye drinks with friends before boarding their boat and setting off on the journey that would be penned into Narrowboating Nomads. It was only fitting that we have “welcome back to London” or “end of our honeymoon” drinks here. On this early Monday afternoon the pub was nearly empty, so we snagged a table where we could clearly see the canal and any boats that were puttering off on their own adventures.

Over our drinks my husband and I agreed that we’d definitely be back for a longer narrowboat holiday someday. Until then, I’ll be finishing up the rest of Haywood’s narrowboat books.

---

Watch our favorite Travel Vlogging YouTubers and their UK Narrowboat holidays:

• Downie Live: A series in which Downie narrowboats the longest tunnel, deepest lock, highest aqueduct, and a rotating boat lift.
• Gone with the Wynns: A sailing couple try canal boating in the UK for a change.
• Kara and Nate: A couple compares van-life to canal-boat life.
• Flying the Nest: A couple tries narrowboating with a toddler.
• The Travel Beans: New parents try narrowboating with a baby.

Like this post? Save it for later!