Foxton Locks
Foxton Locks
Selected Wild Place / Other Wild Places / Public Rights of Way / Parishes
The main car park is on Gumley Road, just south of Foxton village.
A number of bus routes will take you to the site. For more details click here.
- Parish
- Foxton
- County
- Leicestershire
- Canal
- Grand Union Canal Conservation Area
Site species count:
Foxton Locks is a historic canal site covering a mixture of around 40 acres of waterways, meadows and hedgerows. Centred on its famous ten‑lock staircase, the largest of its kind in England and completed in 1814 as part of the Grand Union Canal. This blend of engineering heritage and natural landscape creates a rich wildlife haven: calm canal waters support aquatic species like dragonflies and amphibians, while surrounding grasslands and hedgerows shelter songbirds, pollinators, and small mammals. Together, the site forms an important biodiversity corridor where historic infrastructure and thriving ecosystems coexist.
The canal supports a range of aquatic plants and fish, including roach, while the side ponds attract numerous birds such as kingfishers. Whistling green woodpeckers can be found across the whole site. It also boasts an ancient apple tree in a historic orchard, as well a wide variety of butterflies, lichens and liverworts, grasshoppers, and otters.
Banner image: by Burn the asylum CC BY-SA 3.0
The records and images below may include those from adjacent sites if the grid reference submitted with these records overlaps the boundary of this Wild Place.
The records displayed below include those awaiting verification checks so we cannot guarantee that every identification is correct. Once accepted, the record displays a green tick.
Click on the header to sort A-Z, and again to sort Z-A. Use the header boxes to filter the list.