Back in 1986 and again in 1992, I vacationed on canal narrowboats in Wales (the Llangollen Canal) and England (the Grand Union Canal) respectively. The boats are “self-operated” – we drove them yourselves (topping out at 7 mph) along canals that took us through quaint villages, tunnels and locks (which we operated ourselves), under bridges, and over aqueducts (OMG – the Pontcysyllte!), sometimes encountering other boats along the way. At night we tied up the boat canal-side with metal stakes we pounded into the ground, and we walked into nearby towns to eat in a pub or restaurant or to buy food that we cooked on-board before tucking ourselves into our cozy (ok, tight) quarters. We saw castles, workmen, people fishing, boats being pulled by animals on the towpath, beautiful countryside, structures dating to the Industrial Revolution, and we even went to the Welsh town of Wrexham. Both boats were about 55’ long and about 7’ wide. While the pictures I have from these trips aren’t great, the memories are really wonderful – life at a slow pace, watching wildlife and countryside slowly go by.
For the 1986 journey along the Llangollen Canal, we rented the boat at “English County Cruises” in Wrenbury; the firm, unfortunately, is no longer in existence, at least that I could find. The Canal crosses the border between England and Wales (at Chirk) and goes across the Dee River Valley. It includes the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, the highest navigable aqueduct in Britain – 126 feet high, 19 arches, 1007 feet long – which stretches over the River Dee. The Canal, aqueduct, and other structures are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and the Acqueduct is quite possibly the largest iron-work structure in Britain. Below is a 2013 episode from “Great Canal Journeys,” a short-lived TV series, and the whole episode is about the Llangollen Canal; at about the 20-minute mark is where the stretch of the UNESCO portion of the Canal really begins, including the Pontcysyllte. (BTW – the wife – Prunella Scales – in the British couple that hosts this series is the actress that played John Cleese’s wife on Fawlty Towers; she died in the Fall of 2025).
The photos that follow are from the 1986 journey.
In 1992, for the journey along the Grand Union Canal, we rented our boat at Rose Narrowboats. As I write this, 34 years later, it’s amazing to see that the company is still operating and that the boat we rented, the Buccaneer, is still available. The following photos are from this trip (the picture at the top of this blog post also is from this journey – a handful of locals we met along the way).
