Thank you so much for those links Jeff! I haven't seen them, I have pretty much used Ancestry.com, the IGI, britgen and a few Genuki pages thus far!

~ Jo

Boatbuilding would have been one of those closely prized crafts that were passed down father to son, similarly ownership of a canal narrowboat would be a family affair. I'm sure you know in the pre-railway days when canals were the country's main arteries, whole families would live on their barges. I live only 100yards from the Grand Union canal where it enters the edge of Greater London coming from Birmingham aka Warwickshire, then on into central London and the old Docklands & beyond. Near us is a wharf where they used to have a narrowboat fitted-out as a schoolhouse for the children off narrowboats that would moorup and stay for the winter months "break". The canal near us is quite wide, the wharfs were important for this timberyard that is still there albeit using lorries now of course (see pic). Not far down the canal from this are local brickfields, gravel pits where clay was dug & made into bricks to be barged into London during it's huge expansion in the 1800s. Ironically the first railway locos on Brunel's new Great Western Railway between Bristol & London were placed on the rails near here, after being shipped by sea from Liverpool to London then canal to here, where the canal was/is adjacent to the new railways, so the canal helped ensure it's own demise....
By complete coincidence my wife is from Banbury, North Oxfordshire, linked to us by this same canal and not far south of Warwick. Banbury owes it's growth to the canal, her mother still lives at Britannia Wharf. But no we're not bargees.

http://www.francisfrith.com/uxbridge/photos/grand-union-canal-c1955_u52006/

I think you miust be right, certainly (and as posted above) searching Richard Harwood and Ann Allen on LDS all the pointers suggest this marriage and subsequent baptisms to be valid and in the Warwick area.

"England, Warwickshire Parish Registers, 1538-1900,"
Name: Richard Harwood
Event: Marriage
Event Date: 06 Nov 1785
Event Place: St Nicholas, Warwick, Warwickshire, England
Gender: Male
Age:
Marital Status:
Father:
Mother:
Spouse: Ann Allen
Spouse's Marital Status:
Spouse's Father:
Spouse's Mother:
Film Number: 554733
Digital Folder Number: 4098774
Image Number: 00120

Reading ever-reliable Genuki gives this Gazetteer description which emphasises the importance of the River Avon & later the Canal which opened in 1800, conveniently fitting our families timescales.

"WARWICK, comprises the parishes of St. Nicholas and St. Mary, and is a post and market town, municipal and parliamentary borough, and county town of South Warwickshire, locally situated in the Warwick division of Kington hundred, county Warwick, 90 miles N.W. of London by road, 100 by the London and North-Western, and 107½ by the Great Western railway. It is situated on the banks of the river Avon, near the junction of the Birmingham and Napton canals, and closely adjoining the town of Leamington."
[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)

Click on the link for a much more detailed description.
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/WAR/Warwick/index.html

Also of possible interest re the history of the Birmingham/Warwick & Napton Canal.
http://www.jim-shead.com/waterways/History.php?wpage=WKNC

This Map shows how the Wye & Severn near the Forest were easily navigable from Warwick, see Newnham marked at base of map.
http://www.ampltd.co.uk/digital_guides/industrial_revolution_series_one_parts_4_and_5/i...