We visited downtown Bedworth again this morning to check if it really was as bad as we had thought. It actually improves on a second visit. By far the best building in town is the set of almshouses built in the 1840s to house the poor.

They were built by a charity founded by an 18th century parson and squire called Nicholas Chamberlaine. He left most of his estate to the charity. This included some land which turned out to have valuable coal deposits, so the charity did very well thank you, and was able to make splendid provision for the deserving poor. The is part of the almshouses’ garden.

The tiny local museum shows the uniform worn by the residents, up until the mid 20th century.

They also have a figure of Mister Chamberlaine.

“We don’t know what he looked like,” the volunteer tells us, “But he probably dressed something like this.” We also learned the correct pronunciation of Bedworth. It’s BED-uth.

From there we stuck our heads in the church. About a quarter of the interior had been turned into a tea room, because nothing brings you closer to god than a nice cup of tea.

The last coal mine in town closed in the 1980s, but the main green space is still called the Miners’ Welfare Park.

The Town That Never Forgets. The kids aren’t allowed to forget mining when the park features a pit head wheel…

… and a statue of a skeletal miner excavating the shrubbery.

Did I mention the local museum also had a room devoted to kids pictures of pit heads and mining equipment made out of drinking straws?

Look, the last mine closed two decades before those kids were born. Don’t you think it’s time to let the little buggers forget mining?

The park also has a steam roller lurking in a cage in the shrubbery.

Steam rollers are cool. Technically this one is a diesel roller, not a steam roller, so it’s not even coal fired.

Paula was feeling under the weather, so we headed back to the boat and after lunch set off again. After a further brief flirtation with the weirdness of the Coventry Canal…

… we turned onto the bucolic meanderings of the Ashby with its grassy towpath and mellow limestone bridges.

To give it’s full name, we’re on the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Canal. Zouch rhymes with The Mighty Boosh.

We stopped to do a load of laundry. The new alternator seems to work fine even under heavy load.

We moored up near the A5 bridge. The canal may be two hundred years old but the A5 is over two thousand. Of course back in Roman times it was the Via V.

Mister Squirrel doesn’t care.

He doesn’t speak Latin. Neither does Mister House Sparrow. He has found a house to nest in.

But wait! What hell-spawned abomination is this?

Ducks attempting to disguise themselves as cows? This is not going to end well.