Life on the Canal

Most towns and cities with a river, especially a big one like the Trent, have a thriving riverside. But good old Nottingham likes to do things differently. There are hardly any buildings overlooking our river on the city side, but there are lots by our canal.

The Nottingham-Beeston canal bypasses a bit of the river that isn’t navigable and is well worth discovering. It goes from Trent Bridge to Beeston Lock and has a good towpath all the way, making for an easy and pleasant walk or bike ride.

From Trent Bridge, the canal passes Notts County FC and the Trent Navigation pub, tracking London Road before taking a sharp left turn along the back of Canal Street to the city centre. There’s lots to see, especially in the summer: boats going through the lock near the train station, the old Fellows, Morton and Clayton warehouse (now a pub with two boats inside) and various interesting old architecture. A bit further on is Castle Marina, with big and small boats on sale and hundreds of moored narrowboats, some with people living on board long-term.

Life aboard very much suits some people: even posh narrowboats are a lot cheaper to buy than a flat and have all the usual mod cons on board; even central heating. And there aren’t many flats you can untie and take off on your holidays. Obviously, space is limited, but the larger boats are bigger than bedsit size, with some reaching up to 70 feet long with two or three bedrooms. Apart from the few “wide-beams”, they’re all 6ft 10in wide, as this is half the width of a standard lock, so two can fit in together.

Outside the marina, more boats are moored on a temporary basis along the sides of the canal. You have to move on every two weeks if you haven’t got a fixed mooring either in a marina or on the canal bank, rented from the Canal and River Trust.

There’s a wide variety of boats about the place, varying in size from twenty to seventy feet long – no metric measurements allowed. Some are just about holding together, others quite luxurious. Some have extensive gardens on the roof, others have piles of precariously balanced junk. But on the whole, whatever sort of boat people have, they tend to be friendly and happy to help any boater with a problem. It’s pretty much compulsory to wave to anyone you pass on a canal or river.

Of course, not all boats are narrowboats; there are “cruisers” as well. They’re smaller and made of fibreglass, so tend to be wary of getting too close to ten-plus tons of steel, especially in locks. These are much more commonly used for day trips rather than for living on.

The canal ends in a busy little community south of Beeston town centre. There’s a small marina and boats are moored both sides of the lock, some residential, some for weekend and holiday use. There’s a shop, café and waterside bar and if you like real ale and good food, it’s not far to the well-recommended Victoria, next to Beeston Station.

The towpath ends at Beeston Lock, where the river becomes navigable again. But if you fancy taking a trip by foot, there’s a riverside foot and cycle path that continues past Attenborough Nature reserve to Trent Lock, on the Derbyshire border, where there are waterside pubs and a cafe.

Canals, like railways, tend to be round the back of roads and buildings, so they’re often hard to spot, but well worth the effort. So keep your eyes peeled.

And if you’re still in the dark about "gongoozlers", they’re the people who cluster round locks, watching boaters do all the hard work with the windlass. Where does the word come from? Truthfully, no-one seems to have the faintest idea!