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Potters Green Corridor is the most complex of the five green "corridors". (The others are "Canley Corridor", "Coventry Canal Corridor", "Eastern Green Corridor" and "Longford Corridor"). It varies in width from barely 10yds wide to nearly 1000yds wide, and meanders wildly. Open short grass, high herbs, thick shrubs and mature parkland trees are all squeezed in between housing estates, industry and schools. The southern end of the corridor is also a Coventry Nature Conservation Site. - o - News : The Leisure and Neighbourhood Centre was completed by mid-2010, and the the path leading into Moat House Park 100 metres to the north of the old entrance opened. By Mar-2011 all the major works in the upgrade of Moat House Park were completed. These include:
All that remains to do is finishing the cleaning up and doing a bit
more "gardening". By Summer 2011 it should all be looking smart. For
more photos see The improvements were influenced by The Friends of Moat House Park (see
- o - Paths seem to want to cross the corridor rather than go along it, and the green corridor is sometimes blocked for walkers by fenced in playing fields. However, with the help of the map a variety of routes can be found!
Moat House Park is one of the interesting crossing routes worth exploring. It includes Woodway Grange Moat, a Coventry Nature Conservation Site (CNCS). Access to the moat is no longer possible, but it can be viewed from the footpath to the south or from Watcombe Road.
Notes on historyFrom the late sixteenth to the nineteenth century this area developed collieries in the midst of the earlier farmlands. The Coventry walks maps mark the key former sites, and routes of some of the transport links which supported them. These collieries were:
A narrow gauge horse drawn line was built to transport coal mined at Craven Colliery and to connect with the Oxford canal at Sowe Common. The line left the colliery, crossed Henley Road and went N then NE until it met and crossed Woodway Lane (this part of the route is clearly visible today) . It then turned left and continued along the right-hand side of the lane until opposite the 'Jolly Collier' Pub where it crossed the lane again and went NW to the old arm of the canal. Until the widening of Woodway Lane in the 1970's the site of the railway was clear by the wide verge on the side of the lane, indeed this is still apparent today north of the lane's junction with Ringwood Highway where the wide verge still exists. The coal was then loaded into barges moored on the arm of the canal which connected with the Oxford canal and where there was originally an iron bridge - which was dismantled in the 1980's and re-erected at Spon End. In the other direction the canal arm went on to the Alexander Colliery basin just west of Deedmore Road and where the 'Clod' banks were, before being leveled to provide ground for the present day Industrial Estate. From here the canal arm doubled back on itself to be again crossed by a bridge in Deedmore Road to a further basin at Alexandra Colliery. The canal also continued from the Alexandra Colliery basin to rejoin the Oxford canal just before the junction to the Wyken Arm (currently Wyken Basin). There was another colliery tramway from Alexandra colliery that crossed Deedmore Road by a level crossing - the gates were still there until comparatively recently - which then headed off across the 'burning banks' towards Wyken Basin. From here there was a L & N.W.R. branch line linking to the Coventry-Nuneaton railway. This tramway was extended down to Craven colliery by the early 1920s. For more information see:
These collieries and their transport links have a significant impact on the contours and footpaths in the area today, and for those interested in such history form plenty of scope for exploration on the walks.
Good for Dogs rating:
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Coventry
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