Foxton Locks

You'll know you're at Foxton Locks the moment the Grand Union Canal widens and those massive brick chambers come into view. Ten locks arranged in two staircases - it's an extraordinary feat of Victorian engineering that still does exactly what it was built to do in 1810: lift narrowboats 75 feet up the canal in one go.

Walking the towpath here is free, and you can easily spend an hour watching boats negotiate the locks, especially if you time it right and catch someone working through. There's a café and a small museum if you want to go deeper into the history, though the real spectacle is just standing there watching the water levels shift and the mechanics work. Kids get genuinely mesmerised by it all - there's something hypnotic about watching a boat rise and fall.

It's about three miles from Leicester, making it a proper half-day trip rather than a full day outing. The towpath walks in both directions are decent, though nothing spectacular - you're alongside the canal mostly. Summer weekends get rammed with families and narrowboat enthusiasts, so an off-peak visit pays dividends.

If you're basing yourself at Valley View Escapes or one of the nearby parks, Foxton makes an easy detour. It's not a sit-around-for-hours sort of place, but it's worth the drive to see working canal infrastructure that's genuinely impressive. The engineering alone justifies the trip.