Summerleaze Beach to Helebridge
Lobster pots on the canal bank, Atlantic salt in the air,
Over recent years, the Bude Canal Regeneration Project has drummed a stalwart battle to revitalise the canal. Tourists have flocked to Bude's beaches ever since the railways connected the corridors of the South West to outsiders. Today's waves attract surfers and the big cool factor that comes with them, while the canal manages to retain a secret haven from the crowds and history still has its way of whispering from romantic relics all along the way. A walk along the Bude Canal today is like stepping into the past whilst scuffing your boots on the future. A canal with a sea view and Cornish icecreams at the end - perfect!
About the Bude Canal
The Bude Canal was built to carry mainly sand, limestone, coal and farm manures. Its first 2 miles were barge canal which then narrowed for use only by tub boats. Length: 35½ miles (only the first 2 miles of Barge Canal are being made navigable) Locks: 3 (including sea lock) Inclined planes: 6 Engineer: James Green Completed: 1823 Railways reached Bude in 1898 so the waterways closed soon after with most sections sold back to landowners
   
Walk 09 - Summerleaze Beach to Helebridge
Approx distance: 2 miles Bude Canal
Start: Summerleaze Beach. Grid ref: SS203064 Finish: Helebridge. Grid ref: SS214037 
Starting a canal walk with your back to the sea is a novel experience! The huge sea lock marks the start of the Bude Canal and its towpath feels suspended in air over the beach for the first few yards. Almost immediately you reach the wide lower wharf area which has a real seaside feel - rowing boats for hire, food and icecreams for sale, and the Bude & Stratton Town Museum providing more information about the canal's history and its unique tub boats.
You'll need to cross the road at the end of the wharf (Falcon Bridge is almost too low even for rowing boats to get under!) and the towpath continues from the carpark by the Tourist Information Centre. On the opposite side of the canal, you'll see historic buildings such as the converted lifeboat house, now apartments, and a grade II-listed building which was once a saw mill and later a steam laundry, before being converted into private homes in the 1980s (a couple are available for holiday lets - see below). The towpath is fringed by trees to your left, hiding Bude Marshes, a nature reserve popular with twitchers, and the scenery opens out as fields dotted with sheep appear to the right. The towpath crosses over to the right side of the canal at Rodd's Bridge then continues along towards the canal's only other locks, Rodd's Bridge and Whalesborough, with open views of the Cornish countryside. When we did this walk, the two locks were still being restored, but are due to be finished by early 2009, making this stretch to Helebridge navigable again. Just before Helebridge, where the river Neet and the canal merge, you'll see a weir off to the left used to control the flow of water to the canal. At Helebridge, continue under the A39 and walk the last few hundred tree-lined yards to the site of the canal's first inclined plane to Marhamchurch. You can either continue up the hill to explore the village or turn round for the return walk to Bude.
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Where to stay
Canalside B&Bs
Canalside cottages
Canalside hotels
Canalside pubs & inns
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Our guidebooks are packed full of ideas, colourful photos, and some of the best highlights we've found along the canals...
Find out more >> Did you know?
Tub boats
Bude was the first canal in the UK (second in the world) to use water-powered tub boats, and first in the world to use tub boats with permanent iron wheels. Where the canal met a hill, the boats were pulled out of the water and up the six inclined planes (the most on any one canal) on rails, with water wheels (one plane used huge buckets of water) driving chains to raise them to the next level where they were re-floated to continue on their way. The sea lock
Bude Canal's sea lock is one of only two in the UK opening directly to the sea and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It was built to allow sea vessels in to the wharf for trading and still operates today. It was set in a huge breakwater to protect and enhance the wharf area and has had to be refurbished or repaired many times, the most recent being in 2008 when a storm wrenched one of the gates off its hinges!
Fact file
Bus info
Traveline T:0871 2002233
Tourist info office: Bude T:01288 354240 budetic@visitbude.info
Bude & Stratton Town Museum Housed in the former canal blacksmith's shop, the museum explores the history of Bude Canal Open April-Sept T:01288 353576
Boat trips There are rowing boats and pedalos available for hire by the hour from the wharf, near the sea lock 
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and the sound of seagulls overhead tell you the Bude Canal is different from other canals. It's the canal on the beach, spilling out from its mighty lock gates onto the golden Cornish sands of Summerleaze Beach.
The towpath has been laid with easy-walking surfaces to encourage serious walkers and Sunday strollers alike. The vision for the future of the Bude Canal has oars, paddles, boots and Cornish cream teas in mind rather than narrowboats, and that, along with seaviews from the towpath, gives the Bude Canal a distinctive holiday feel.
