Lincolnshire, England

Brayford Pool slipway (Lincoln)

Launch — The Brayford Trust manages Brayford Pool, including this stretch of the waterfront, on behalf of City of Lincoln Council; its Harbour Office is at Cygnet Wharf, Campus Way, Lincoln LN6 7GA.

Parking — Lucy Tower Street Car Park (LN1 1XL), about 180 metres from the launch, is a City of Lincoln Council multi-storey with 410 spaces, 11 of them disabled and 6 for motorcycles, plus 18 EV charging points; the height restriction is 6 ft 3 in (1.9 m).

Access — The Brayford Trust reserves its own slipway, hard standings and roadways for mooring owners, so the public's confirmed entitlement is to the waterfront and the water rather than to that specific facility. The waterfront is reached from the city centre via Brayford Wharf East or from Campus Way on the university side; a footbridge lets pedestrians cross the Brayford Wharf East level crossing at all times.

Season — The Brayford Trust reports an increasing frequency of high-volume flood water flowing into the Pool from the River Witham and the Fossdyke Canal, and the Environment Agency lowers Witham water levels each winter for flood alleviation. The Brayford Trust and the Canal & River Trust publish no paddler-specific seasonal closure of the Pool.

Regulations — The Canal & River Trust requires unpowered craft, including paddleboards, to be licensed on the canals and rivers it manages; the connecting Fossdyke Navigation and River Witham are CRT waters. Neither the Trust nor the Brayford Trust states explicitly whether that licensing requirement extends to the Pool itself, as distinct from the CRT's retained navigable channel through it. The Brayford Trust asks craft to keep to the navigational channel toward the north bank other than when accessing the moorings.

This slipway on Brayford Wharf East launches onto Brayford Pool, a natural widening of the River Witham in central Lincoln that has served as an inland harbour since Roman times. The pool connects west to the Fossdyke Navigation, for which the Canal and River Trust is navigation authority, and today it is lined with bars, restaurants and a university campus, with mooring for pleasure craft.

Brayford Pool sits at the junction of two navigations: the Fossdyke, running eleven miles west to Torksey Lock and the River Trent under a single lock, and the River Witham, which leaves the Pool eastward through the city toward Boston. The Pool itself is non-tidal; the tidal limit on the Witham is the Grand Sluice at Boston, well downstream. The Canal & River Trust retains a marked navigable channel along the north bank; the water toward the south bank, where this launch sits, is shallower.

The Brayford Trust installed two floating habitat islands in 2013, which sit in the Pool alongside a longer-standing tree-covered island giving refuge to otters, swans, ducks, fish and pollinators. The University of Lincoln's campus lines the south bank near the launch, and East Holmes signal box stands at the Pool's south-east corner: a Grade II listed, all-timber Great Northern Railway box from 1873, closed in 2008.

Nearby

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Costa

Coffee shop by the Odeon cinema on Brayford Wharf North, on the Pool's north bank opposite the launch.

Coffee Depot

Independent coffee shop on Carholme Road, on the Pool's north-west side.

Website

Hartsholme Country Park Campsite

City of Lincoln Council touring campsite in Hartsholme Country Park, open to public bookings from 1 March to 31 October.

Website

Conditions to check

Boat traffic

Brayford Pool is a working marina with a Canal & River Trust-retained navigable channel running through it, carrying boat traffic between the Fossdyke Navigation and the River Witham.

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Shallow or rocky

The Brayford Trust advises keeping to the navigational channel toward the north bank; the water can be shallow outside the channel and away from the moorings.

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Other

The Pool holds a resident population of mute swans, which the Brayford Trust describes as very territorial and aggressive toward other birds.

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