Onbekommerd: Walking around Stratford

The last few days we walked around Stratford a bit. First we took a guided town walk; we generally like these guided walks as they teach you such a lot about the background and history which you miss out on when you walk around by yourself. This guided walk was especially nice as we were the only guests, it became a private tour; that is the advantage of being here out of season!

Then this morning, in bright sunshine, we walked, by ourselves this time, along the Stratford Canal (which runs right behind our little 'house') and the River Avon.
The canal has lots of locks in it, and as 'boaters' we are obviously immediately interested in them. They are very different from the locks we are used to, as they are 'narrowboat' locks, you could quite easily jump over them. The lock doors (only one on each side) are hand operated. Now, outside the season, they are closed: the handles for the sluice gates have been removed. Whilst the canal is now only used by pleasurecraft, it was dug in the early 19th century to transport (mainly) coal to the inland industries. With the arrival of the railways in the early 20th century the canal was not used anymore and deteriorated severely and only in the 1960's was it restored for recreational purposes. There is an enormous network of these canals and, as you can see from one of the photographs below, one can get all the way to London or to York from here. Of course the locks are way to narrow for 'Onbekommerd'! Any way, even though it would be quite possible to cross from France to England, that is not part of our plan!
The Avon of course is a proper river. The Holy Trinity church, where Shakespeare lies buried (see previous post) is built right on the bank of the river.