X-Nico

9 unusual facts about Grand Union Canal


Canal pound

Most of the locks on the Grand Union Canal between Whilton Locks and lock 45 at Bulbourne, the junction with the Wendover Arm, were built with two such side ponds, although they are currently disused.

Canal ring

Thames and Severn Canal, Stroudwater Navigation, Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, River Severn, River Avon, Stratford-upon-Avon Canal, Grand Union Canal, Oxford Canal, River Thames This ring is only possible when the Thames and Severn Canal and the Stroudwater Navigation are fully restored.

Cardinal beetle

They bask for long periods on large leaves often near water – the Grand Union Canal being one particular hotspot.

Den Watts

The scene where Den actually hit the water had to be taped at the BBC's Ealing Film Studios using a water tank, because the waters of the Grand Union Canal were deemed unsafe.

Dudley Canal

Traffic through the new tunnel was meagre until 1802, when the Stratford Canal provided a link to the Warwick and Birmingham Canal (later the Grand Union Canal), and hence to London.

Elmdon Heath

The Grand Union Canal runs through the area, and Elmdon Heath used to be the site of Solihull Wharf, which is now remembered only in the name of Wharf Lane.

Grand Union

Grand Union Canal, a waterway running from London to Birmingham in the United Kingdom

Michael Wood's Story of England

We track Kibworth's 17th century dissenters, travel on the Grand Union Canal and meet an 18th-century feminist writer from Kibworth who was a pioneer of children's books.

Rockware Glass

Rockware's former works by the Grand Union Canal in Greenford, London, developed from W.A.Bailey's glassworks founded in 1900 and Purex lead works.


Central Milton Keynes

(Campbell Park, stretching from Marlborough Street down to the Grand Union Canal, is sometimes included in mental maps of the centre, though in fact it is part of a separate civil parish).

Cotton End, Northampton

The Northampton Branch of the Grand Union Canal from Blisworth runs adjacent to the north of the site, just soutth of the River Nene, joining with the river via a lock.

Crick, Northamptonshire

The Leicester Line of the Grand Union Canal passes just east of Crick, and the village is well known for its canal marina and annual Crick Boat Show.

Halton Railway

The majority of the track has since been removed, including the original bridge over the Grand Union Canal which was replaced by a modern footbridge, however much of the line is designated a permissive footpath.

Hertford Union Canal

It was acquired by the Regents Canal Company in 1857, and became part of the Grand Union Canal in 1927.

Painted Boats

Location filming took place on the 20-mile stretch of the Grand Union Canal between Stoke Bruerne and Braunston in Northamptonshire, including the Blisworth Tunnel – at 1.75 miles (2.82 km) in length, the third-longest canal tunnel in Britain.

River Ouzel

Near Grove Lock, just south of Leighton Buzzard, it was once joined by Ledburn Brook, which has since been diverted into the Grand Junction Canal (now the Grand Union Canal).

Shrewley, Warwickshire

It has the Grand Union Canal, which passes through a tunnel and cutting which is a SSSI, London Marylebone to Birmingham Snow Hill railway and M40 motorway all running parallel and in close proximity at the south-western end of Shrewley Common.


see also

Nascot Wood

The Industrial Revolution brought the Grand Junction Canal (now Grand Union Canal) in 1798 and the London and Birmingham Railway in 1837, both located here for the same reasons the road had followed centuries before, seeking an easy gradient over the Chiltern Hills.