This is not a construction update. Every so often we will write about the quarter instead, because a building is only ever half of where you live, and the Basin is having a quietly good year. What follows is a short account of it, gathered on foot.
The towpath came first. The city finished resurfacing the stretch between Gauge Street and the boatyard in April — a compacted buff gravel, no tarmac — and the difference is felt more than seen. Runners at seven, prams at ten, and by evening the slow traffic of people who are not going anywhere in particular, which is the traffic a canal is for.
On Gauge Street, the bakery has taken the unit next door and now seats twenty. The Dredger reopened its wharf terrace for the season at Easter, with the brewery’s money spent where you would hope — on the cellar, not the signage. And the Boilerhouse’s summer show, a survey of the canal’s working photography from 1890 to 1960, includes three photographs of our own kiln hall in operation. We have asked, respectfully, about copies.
On the water: the boatyard has taken its first apprentice in a decade, the visitor moorings by Ballast Green are full most weekends, and the heron who oversees the wharf gate has been joined by a second, which the towpath regulars regard as either romance or a territorial dispute. Opinions are held strongly.
None of this is ours to claim. The Basin was not manufactured for a brochure, and it will not behave like a place that was — it was working water for a century and a half, and it keeps its own hours. What we can say is that it was already worth living in before we arrived, and our job is to add forty-two front doors without changing its temperature.