Scenic Place in Warwickshire

The Stratford-upon-Avon Canal is a historic waterway of approximately 25 miles running through the heart of Warwickshire and connecting the canal network at Kingswood Junction near Lapworth with the River Avon at Stratford-upon-Avon. Completed in 1816 after a construction programme that stretched over two decades, the canal was built primarily to carry coal from the Warwickshire coalfields southward and to enable the movement of agricultural produce and goods throughout a region that lacked good road connections. The canal fell into progressive disuse as road and rail transport developed through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and by the 1950s much of the southern section was completely impassable, its locks collapsed, its channel silted up and its infrastructure crumbling. The restoration of the Stratford Canal between 1960 and 1964, organised entirely by volunteers working under the aegis of the National Trust, was one of the pioneering examples of canal restoration in Britain and helped inspire the broader canal preservation movement that eventually rescued hundreds of miles of waterway across England and Wales. The engineering of the canal includes several features of particular interest. The Edstone Aqueduct near Bearley is at 475 feet the longest cast-iron aqueduct in England, carrying the canal across a shallow valley on a trough of cast iron that gives the extraordinary sensation of sailing across a field above the level of the surrounding landscape. The wharf-side buildings at Lapworth and several other locations retain authentic canal heritage character, and the distinctive barrel-roofed lock keeper's cottages that appear at intervals along the canal are some of the most photographed structures on the waterway network. Today the canal is primarily used by narrowboats and hire cruisers enjoying the peaceful countryside through which it passes, connecting the Shakespeare country of Warwickshire with the broader Midlands canal network. Walking and cycling the towpath provides an accessible and thoroughly pleasant way to experience the landscape along the canal's route.

The Stratford Butterfly Farm in Stratford-upon-Avon is the largest butterfly house in the United Kingdom and one of the most popular family attractions in the Midlands, a tropical greenhouse environment where hundreds of free-flying exotic butterflies share a carefully maintained rainforest habitat with a remarkable collection of other tropical invertebrates and small creatures. Opened in 1985, the farm was a pioneering attraction in Britain when it was established and continues to provide a genuinely extraordinary encounter with the natural world. The main tropical greenhouse maintains the temperature, humidity and plant life of an equatorial rainforest, creating conditions in which species from across South America, Asia and Africa can complete their life cycles. The plants that fill the space include exotic flowering species chosen to provide both visual richness and the nectar sources that sustain the butterfly population. Walking through the greenhouse in high summer, with morpho butterflies with their iridescent blue wings catching the light and owl butterflies resting on fallen fruit, provides an experience of the tropical world available nowhere else in the British Midlands. The life cycle of the butterflies is observable at every stage within the farm. The emergence room allows visitors to watch adult butterflies emerging from their chrysalises, a process of transformation that is one of the most genuinely astonishing spectacles in the natural world. The variety of chrysalis forms, from the golden-spotted swallowtail to the extraordinary leaf-mimicking forms of other species, demonstrates the breadth of evolutionary solutions to the challenge of metamorphosis. Beyond butterflies, the farm maintains a fascinating collection of tropical insects. Leafcutter ants carry their plant fragments to their colony in a steady stream visible through a perspex tube running through the building. Giant millipedes, stick insects, praying mantises and a collection of tarantulas and other spiders provide additional encounters with the world's invertebrate diversity. The proximity to Stratford's other attractions, including Shakespeare's birthplace, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and the historic town centre, makes the Butterfly Farm a natural addition to a day in this very popular tourist destination.