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Hartshill Canal Yard was built to maintain both the canal boats that transported the stone from the quarries, and the canal itself.

This picture from 1959 shows the dock where the boats were repaired after their long journeys.

This part of the canal was built for the quarries to transport Hartshill stone in 1773. It’s part of the Coventry Canal. Boats on the canal carried many other cargoes such as coal from Bedworth, lime, sand, sugar, timber and manure!

Since then, first railways and then roads have been used to take Hartshill Stone around the country. Here at the Canal Yard you can see road, rail and the canal all alongside each other, which is very unusual, because of the quarries.

Listen to the Quarrymen talking about the railway:

The ballast the quarrymen were talking about is the stone that is put under the railway tracks. So most Hartshill stone taken away by railway was actually used to build more railways!

There is one other kind of transport that Hartshill stone has been used for. Find out what it is by listening to the Quarrymen again.

Listen to the Quarrymen again to find out:

During World War II, airstrips were built all over the country so fighter planes could take off. Hartshill Stone was the best material to build the runways from. So as the Quarrymen said, the stone was needed all the time.

Building the runways was so important to winning the war that the Quarrymen didn’t go off to become soldiers. It was more important that they kept quarrying more stone.

What about now?
British Waterways canal workers are still based at the Canal Yard looking after this part of the canal. Canal boats still stop at the yard on their way up and down the canal. Most of these boats are holiday boats but a few still carry stone and coal along the canal.

Bridge 32		The Hartshill Boat Yard
Bridge 31 and the Cottage		View from Bridge 31