Ripon Canal

The Ripon Canal, one of the most northerly in England, came within a whisker of being filled in the late 1950s, but now it has been beautifully restored.

It runs almost from the centre of the city over just 2.5 miles to its junction with the River Ure, through three locks and this elegant bridge.

We detoured here on our way back from Norfolk to Durham, and found a fantastic display of wild flowers along the canal bank walk and in the canal itself.

White water lily

Yellow waterlily (a.k.a. brandy bottles)

 

Valerian

Meadowsweet

Meadow Crane'sbill

Amphibious bistort

Mare'stail

Marsh woundwort

..... and with all those flowers, plenty of butterflies too - like this comma.

Well worth a visit if you're in the area and fancy a short but very enjoyable canal-side walk.......

Ox-eye Daisies

You can’t travel far down a motorway in early summer without noticing drifts of ox-eye daisies Leucanthemum vulgare growing along the embankments, although the threat of being squashed by HGVs mean that you daren’t take your eyes off the road to admire them for more than a second. The daisies seem to dominate every wild flower mix that’s used to re-seed the bare soil after the road builders leave, but I think this magnificent display must have seeded themselves. We came across them at the weekend, growing beside a trunk route from an age when heavy goods vehicles moved at a slower pace - pulled by a horse in a barge - alongside the Chesterfield Canal in Derbyshire. Botanising along canal towpaths is a delightful way to send a summer day...