Paddington Basin - our first impressions

Thursday, 13 November 2008 19:27

So, we are moored in Paddington Basin - what is it like in winter?

I think I need to go back to the beginning of the area at Little Venice.

Little Venice begins with the church of St Mary Magdalene which is easy to identify by the canal towpath.


Visitor moorings (14D) start here alongside the church.

The next bridge is Formosa Street footbridge and as we went under the bridge we could see that all the VMs were full.


About half of them are winter moorings so the boats will not be moving. What about the 14 dayers? - who knows? Although today when we walked up there was one space by the church.



The next bridge, Ha'penny bridge is by the sanitary station and was one of the gauging points for the working boats.

The old BW Managers office was also here. We hovered under the bridge whilst John did the necessary with one of our cassettes! There was no room for us to moor there as two other boats were "using the facilities"?




We turned right under Westway Bridge into the cut to Paddington Basin.

The basin is still under development and so there is some building work near the Helix Bridge separating the West End from the main Basin.



There is also work going on around Merchant Square adjoining the West End. Seen here from the West.

It is therefore quite noisy during the day. At night there is the background traffic noise always present in central London.

Most of the visitor moorings in the basin are full. 10 of them are winter moorings - undesignated, but most of these boats are on the pontoons below the ongoing building work and the Marks and Spencer HQ.


This building is visually very interesting, designed by the Richard Rogers firm of architects. It looks great at night!

This is one of the towers

The Curling bridge,  was taken away in the summer for repairs and is still not back, but is due "any time".
The gap is also directly opposite us!



My sister visited us today and this afternoon we went for a walk in the drizzle so it was not worth taking photos. However I shall be doing so whilst we are here to give my own personal interpretation of the area!

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