Leicestershire, England

Bath Yard Basin put-in (Moira)

Launch — A slipway at Bath Yard Basin, one of two the Ashby Canal Association provides on this isolated length (the other at Moira Furnace); launching must be arranged with the Association in advance.

Parking — Free parking for cars and coaches is provided at the adjacent Conkers Waterside Centre (100 spaces); a further free car park serves the Association's other slipway at Moira Furnace, about 15 minutes' walk along the canal.

Access — Reached via Bath Yard off the A444, signed from the A42, M42, A444 and A514; launching at the slipway must be arranged in advance with the Ashby Canal Association.

Season — Each year, in early summer, the Ashby Canal Association holds a trail-boat festival on this water when visiting craft occupy the basin; a trip boat also runs from Moira Furnace over the summer months.

Regulations — This isolated length is not part of the Canal & River Trust's connected navigable network, which currently runs from Marston Junction to Snarestone; it is managed instead under the Leicestershire County Council (Ashby de la Zouch Canal Extension) Order 2005, which gives the council powers to manage the canal and charge for its use but confers no public right of navigation. Launching here is arranged directly with the Ashby Canal Association, which levies a small-craft launch fee.

Bath Yard Basin is the head of a short, isolated length of the Ashby Canal at Moira in North West Leicestershire, opposite the Conkers National Forest visitor centre. OpenStreetMap marks a slipway on the basin, which forms the terminus of the length restored between Donisthorpe and Moira and reopened in 2001, with a new lock built at Moira.

This length of canal is a short cul-de-sac, disconnected from the Canal & River Trust's connected network, which currently runs from Marston Junction to Snarestone. From the basin it runs about a mile and a half south-west to Donisthorpe, crossed partway by Moira Lock, a wide-beam lock that any paddler continuing along the length has to portage around.

Sarah's Wood and Donisthorpe Woodland Park, two Leicestershire County Council country parks, border the canal here, and Moira Furnace, a nineteenth-century blast furnace built by the Earl of Moira in 1804 and now preserved as a museum, stands beside the water about half a mile from the basin.

Nearby

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Canalside Café

At the Conkers Waterside Centre beside the basin; open to the public without paying Conkers admission.

Website

The Hub Cafe

At the Moira Furnace Museum site, about half a mile along the canal from the basin.

Conkers Camping and Caravanning Club Site

Open to the general public year-round; entered via an automatic keypad barrier locked overnight.

Website

Conditions to check

Lock

Moira Lock, a wide-beam lock built as part of the 2001 restoration, sits on this length between the basin and Donisthorpe; continuing past it means a portage.

Source

Boat traffic

Powered trail-boats visit this water each year for the Ashby Canal Association's early-summer festival, and a trip boat runs from Moira Furnace over the summer months.

Source

Limited exit

This is a short, physically isolated length of about one and a half miles between Donisthorpe and Bath Yard Basin, disconnected from the wider navigable Ashby Canal network.

Source

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