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The canalside is waiting to be visited!

We've heard that the canalside eateries need more customers but long stretches of the beautiful canal within the Borough and it's borders are waiting to be visited too.(This is just an excuse to post a picture!) Having missed Ealing's Skyride through illness...a diabetic hiccup... I made amends last Sunday and spend some 2-3 hours in the saddle..at slow pace!A friend and I rode through Osterley Park and out to the country lanes approaching Norwood Green. "That's the farmer's Georgian residence" I was told. "That small horse there is 20 years old"   Fields stretched to the right and left. "Hayley Mills used to live over there" "That's going to be an exclusive Sikh/Hindu school" "That's the old Heston Police" Station" Meandering through North Heston we came to the Grand Union Canal.....so peaceful... away from traffic noise......continued

Jim Lawes ● 5760d7 Comments

Thank you Jim for those photos. My husband grew up as a young child in Hanwell, and he really enjoyed seeing them.    His father was a nurse at the Mental Hospital, and he also had an allotment in the vicinity. He told me that the Asylum (Mental hospital) had a farm back there where they raised animals and grew vegetables for the inmates.     As a young married I lived in Hayes and used to ride my bike to work at Apha Laval on the Great West Road. I would ride on the Uxbridge Rd. to the bottom of the hill past the Asylum then ride through what was a very quiet pleasant route to Gillette Corner and down the G.W.R. on the cycle lane to work.

Doris M. Lediard ● 5756d

So how did they get the boat with the huge mast under the road bridge? Artistic licence or a hinge? (Even then the mast would still be down, surely, as there a couple of more bridges coming up along the canal.)

Alan Clark ● 5756d

...from a 1859(?) edition of the Illustrated London News

Jim Lawes ● 5757d

An old image of Brunel's Three Bridges..from the east side looking westwards. (Artist unknown)The horse and cart on the roadbridge are travelling southwardstowards Brentford/Sion Hill! (Gillette Corner)

Jim Lawes ● 5758d

One must continue!  Brunel’s Three Bridges coming up.oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooThe Hanwell Locks are ahead..and the Windmill Lane road bridge is overhead.To the right is the old GWR line to Brentford (Transport Avenue Waste Depot)Didn’t Brunel and his team do well?OoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooLooking over our left shoulders..the rail line appears going north-westwards to Southall. It’s all a historic sight!

Jim Lawes ● 5758d

Tame swans but the picture was taken from some 15 foot away and I've done some cropping to the image to bring white beauties closer. They had their beaks buried in their feathers...so I whistled and they all stretched their necks and faced the same direction! A great pose. Click click!!Then we came to a lock..and cycled around some local streets and recreation grounds...all hidden away!Lock-keepers were chatty. "That's the Norwood Green Vauxhall garage over there"Another recreation ground was investigated. It's remote but must be on the map! "Down there is the old GWR Brentford to Southall railway line" "There used to be two tracks but now only one." "There's a daily train leaving from Transport Avenue, Brentford (at the back of PC World) at 8pm I think" "There's also a weekly gravel carrying train too"This remote park contain a wireless station with a 200 foot? pylon. Also there's that strange "earth circle" that you can observe on Google Earth. Only four people in the park..picking berries.  We didn't mention that little Branch off the Canal.(Mays?) that fed the old margerine factory. There are resident canalboats along that "dead-end" too.  " I know where you mean..it's at the back of that Industrial Estate behind Sunrise Radio...didn't the factory subsequently make Puffed Wheat!!?"  All these nools and grannies made one forget things that one should be worrying about!!Ah, Brunel's Three Bridges coming up...Walking or cycling..it's a pleasure!..to be continued.

Jim Lawes ● 5760d

Stunning!  My Canon Ixus 500 camera loves dreamy views and so it was easy to capture the peace and tranquility. It's just waiting to be visited..and there's a pub across the road!We met the occasional jogger and a couple of cyclists but we really had the towpath to ourselves. Then we saw the RSPCA Cat Adoption building....then the British Waterways depot with the "rubbish laden barges..and in view came a dozen of swans at The Lamb pub bridge.

Jim Lawes ● 5760d