stort_mark

Rubbish. Sorry. Don't like being so emphatically blunt as this normally, but that is simply rubbish. There has been substantial research conducted in many countries (in various disciplines) over many years; it is noticeable that most of the people who rubbish global warming are not climatologists (such as Lomborg at one end of the scale and the pub bore at the other end).

Ha ha ha. Brilliant. Individual weather events used as example that global warming is "over" or "solved". Where on earth did you get the idea there is no comment from the global warming lobby?

Jim, I'm with you on this and I am disappointed that Helen has been chased away; some of the comments (admittedly after her departure) were fairly shameful as well. It would have been interesting to discuss the environmental impacts and get some different perspectives. I happen to agree with the general sentiment of many observations (especially the general uselessness of solar panels) but it seems a missed opportunity to maybe put some of the boating views across. As to what organisation...who cares...she could have just asked lots of questions and started threads and not even said she was writing a report or working for an NGO and everyone would have been belting out their opinions.

Received the 1971 article about the staunch on Bottisham Lode through the post, so a little more information, but not a lot - as the afrticle isn't very good!! It seems that throughout the nineteenth century, traffic on all locla waterways declined dramatically (presumably because of the arrival of the railways) but did revive after 1850 because of the coprolite mining in the area. In March 1871, the local drainage comissioners moaned that the boatmen "threw off" the entrance doors to the Lode to scour the navigation enought to get their boats up. (I've wanted to do that on the Huddersfield). The commissioners then arranged a survey, when it was found that the whole navigation was in a poor state because the local boatmen built their own staunches to impound water; the surveyor blamed the poor design of the sluice at the entrence to the lode. Later that year, the unhappy boatmen threatened to take the coprolite to Fulbourn Station by traction engine so the commissioners resolved to repair the sluice at the entrance, and then charge a toll to cover the cost. Coprolite, almost the only goods then, was rated at 8 pence per ton. The staunch was finally authorised in 1875, and - true to form on the waterways - the commissioners rejected one quote, preferring a cheaper one to build the staunch for 200 pounds. The staunch survived until around 1967 before being demolished in 1969. Now only the chamber survives. In some respects, this was an early canal restoration as the building of the staunch reopened an existing navigation. Given the very pleasant scenery, especially around Anglesey Abbey and Stow-cum-Quy, it is a pity that Bottisham Lode slowly disappeared again.

(Thanks Chris...for the link to an earlier post of mine) I have managed to get a set of WWs from a kind person, in return for a donation to charity. It wasn't an absolutely complete set but was moreorless complete from the early 80s through to around 2002 with a fair number from the 7os as well.

Either that, or you are.

Given that Bottisham Lode is now barely a foot wide for much if its length, I'm getting quite fired up about it. Also, I am finding more sources of information. The 'flash lock' is referred to more commonly as a staunch, it seems. It has been written up in Industrial Archaeology: the Journal of the History of Industry and Technology in 1971. Further references are on someone's blog here, in which there is mention of the Swaffham and Bottisham Drainage Commissioners being authorised to charge tolls and build staunches. The blog states that one staunch is still visible and one basin at Lode. The same source states that the lode was used until around 1900 although it was considered too narrow (at 22 feet) for lighters, and that smaller boats were used. 22 feet width seems laughable now, and only the first few hundred metres is wider than about 12 feet now. In the online History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10 (British History Online) for Swaffham Bulbeck, there is a section on the local economic history which includes little snippets about the (Swaffham Bulbeck Lode) navigation. "In 1376 the villagers asserted their immemorial right to carry merchandise along it by boat against obstruction by the bailiff of Bottisham, while Cambridge men were using boats on it c. 1435. At inclosure ½ a. at its south end was allotted for a public wharf." Further on there is specific additional mention of private staunches to raise the water level for navigation. On Swaffham Bulbeck Lode, the trade was significant enough for the local business to part-own the ships that were used from Kings Lynn for the subsequent export of the agricultural produce. This wasn't just local farmers sending a few cabbages out, but a very substantial trade. Apparently one old barge lay decaying in the terminal basin ("The Fishpond") until 1955; perhaps it is still there! By the 1970s, both the old and new lodes at Swaffham Bulbeck had been filled in. Sadly, the section on Bottisham makes very little mention of Bottisham Lode. However, it does make various references to both brick-making and coprolite mining in the area alongside the lode: maybe the pits in the area near Vicarage Farm are connected with one of those two activities. An article on coprolite mining in Cambridgeshire refers to the Swaffham and Bottisham Drainage Commissioners and correspondence in 1871. At that time, Bottisham Lode was in a fairly disgraceful state and there is some mention of a staunch being constructed in 1872. So perhaps the staunch we see at the end of Lug Fen Drove today is the one built in 1872. In the period from around 1850 to the 1880s, the whole area between Lode and Clayhithe seems to have been dotted with coprolite pits, with tramways taking the valuable cargo to the Cam.

Yes. That's it!!! I wish I could see a photo of it...but that's definitely it, with the rope being somehow looped either side! I feel such an idiot for forgetting how to do it!

Actually, that would have been a better (and less embarrassing) way to get the same information!! What knot do **you** use to hold your boat against the lock-side?

Liam - Your blog is excellent reading as well!

I don't think it is, but thanks for the link!

OK...this has been bugging me for ages. After really messing up a lock on the Calder & Hebble a few years ago, a nearby boater showed me a brilliant knot to use with the mooring rope to keep the boat secure against the side of the lock. It was really easy and quick to tie (blindingly obvious!) but could be released in an instant. For the rest of that holiday, we used it....conscious that probably everyone else on the Cut had known about it since birth....but now I am embarrassed enough to say that in the meantime I have completely forgotten how to tie it. Any chance anyone knows (from this rather poor description) what the knot is and can explain how it is tied?

No......attacking someone simply for their spelling and grammar is puerile and condescending, and you deserved that response.

While not necessarily agreeing with the sentiments stated by Malarky, I've always felt it wise not to criticise people for their grammar or spelling online. There may be many reasons why someone cannot write as well as others. It is unkind and disrespectful, I suggest, to be quite so derogatory. After all, some of your own posts have both spelling mistakes and incorrect grammar. I don't know. Those who couldn't spell Oxbridge properly? (Noting your own criticism of others' spelling earlier)

Getting the geo-referencing right on Flickr is now driving me nuts. This has happened before where the photos have been uploaded with incorrect EXIF data and then when you change it - using the Flickr interface - it ignores it. Even after making all the changes, the photos still show as being taken in Bishop's Stortford. The actual (digital reference) is N52.26354, E0.22086. God knows what I have to do to get Flickr to accept the changes though. Photo here of the site....several others in the same set of Bottisham Lode. Chris' photo (TNC perhaps?) shows the gates facing out towards the Cam, and they work just as you suggest.

I am putting some geo-referenced pictures onto Flickr today, but for some reason the key phtotos have ended up with coordinates forty miles away, so trying to work out what went wrong with the auto-referencing. (The altitude is also all over the place...unusual for such huge errors with this GPS unit). Anyway, if you search Flickr using the tags "Anglesey Abbey" and "Bottisham Lode" you can see some additional photos of Bottisham Lode on the south side of Lode (I didn't have time to walk down that way but might go back next weekend). I'm assuming that the Lode was navigable originally right into Quy Fen. Anyone know what kind of boats they used in this area?

I think this is the same place, although it is 920m from the Cam. I must admit that I hadn't thought of it being a guillotine gate, and the entrance gate to Bottisham Lode from the Cam is a mitre-gate. Also, the area around Fen Farm just NW of this 'lock' site is interesting. The southern towpath opens out to be a long elongated field, and on the north side is now a small lake. 19th Century maps show this to be a series of small ponds. I did wonder what the reason for all this was. Some kind of port facility?

Hmmmmm. I am really not sure if you are serious about all this, or just...errr....somewhat challenged. Consideration of "previous" is always taken into consideration at sentencing. Google "Freddie Cardoza"for more information) Your lack of knowledge of the Boston Miracle or Operation Ceasefire is quite astounding, given that you broguht the whole thing up. Try reading a bit more about it - and what it involved - before gushing (incorrect) generalisations. However, your lack of knowledge of Operation Ceasefire pales into insignificance when you compare it with your inability to actually read what others have written: "What I find the hardest to understand is why some of you guys want to pander to these thugs in anyway at all." No-one wants to pander to criminals or thugs. What I and several others are saying is that statistically, 'lock 'em up and throw away the key' tends to work and work less and less with decreasing seriousness of the crime (as explained why by someone else earlier), and in fact is usually counter-productive. Furthermore, locking people up is prohibitively expensive both in terms of the direct cost (around 25,000 per inmate per year) and the opportunity cost to society (of a person being economically active). As said before: it's expensive and it doesn't work. "Why should we waste time trying to rehabilitate them when a really long sentence (or a firing squad) solves the issue and gets them off our streets, effectively forever?" Because that's what makes us a civilized country and not an authoritarian regime. The trouble with the death penalty (presumably, by inferral, for minor crimes) is that you will rapidly breed a culture of revenge and retribution; things will escalate fast. It also means that you are likely to execute a lot of innocent people; presumably this wouldn't bother you unil it was your child, brother or mother who was shot. "If you bleeding-heart liberals want to help someone, then why not choose some underprivileged people who have not resorted to crime. There are many more such deserving cases." The trouble wth your red-tab logic is that you have a very serious difficulty with rationale. You seem to assume that people who disagree with your 'lock 'em up and throw away the key' are weak on crime. That is not the case, and it is arrogant of you to suggest so; I (we) do not believe that that strategy is successful, and believe that statistics and cost analysis shows it to be unsuccessful and probably counter-productive. When you rant about me (or other bleeding-heart liberals) helping underprivileged people, why on earth do you assume that I/we do not?

I remember a boss once saying to me that if you think about the thing you love doing most of all......somewhere, someone is getting very rich making money out of doing it. He didn't intend it as a motivational speech, but it kind of worked out that way. So...whatever it is you are planning to do......if you plan on doing it better than anyone else can possibly do it (or alternatively cheaper than anyone else), then it is likely to succeed. Good luck!

I have read several accounts of recent attempts to navigate some of the lodes off the Cam, including the Bottisham Lode, and then also read (in a Charles Hadfield book) that there was a flash lock on Bottisham Lode as well. I suspected that this was at the end of Lug Fen Drove, so today - using the excuse of needing to walk the dogs ("Forty miles away? Aren't there places nearer?) - we drove up to Lode to walk along the old waterway. The structure by Vicarage Farm, where Lug Fen Drove turns away from the lode, does seem to be quite substantial, but - alas - no wooden gates. There would appear to be a brick structure on the bed of the lode at this point as well. So...is this the flash lock referred to by Hadfield as "still surviving"? (If you are looking in Google Earth, unfortunately the probable lock-site and footbridge is hidden under the trees, 920m from the bridge at the entrance to the lode from the Cam. If so, does anyone know when the lock was removed? Are there other locks on the lode; we only managed to walk the stretch up to the edge of the village and didn't have time to follow it through to Quy Water and Quy Fen. It's a real pity that this - an other lodes nearby - are not fully restored to navigable status as the area has a lot to see and a lot to offer: navigable waterways would be beneficial to all concerned.

Errrrrr.....why don't you actually read the references to which you refer us? Boston didn't introduce draconian punishments: they introduced a range of things- most of which are in the namby-pamby range that you deride so much. Funnily enough, when the programme ended (in 2005) and relied simply on old-fashioned punishment.....the crime rate escalated again. (Check any of a number of media) And Freddie Cordoza was not simply jailed for possession of a single bullet: he had a rather long history which you conveniently omit to state. So.....you choose good old-fashioned "lock 'em up and throw away the key", which costs taxpayers a fortune and which statistics show doesn't work. Ah, but it makes you feel good, eh!

...and of course, conveniently ignoring the statistical evidence (British Crime Survey historical records) that neither did National Service. Where is your evidence that what you call "namby pamby, fluffy buffy, happy clappy stuff" doesn't work? Perhaps you might want to check out crime rates in countries like Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Countless reports have shown that your "namby pamby stuff" actually does work and costs a lot less as well, Inspector Grimm. Maybe read one of Nacro's reports (errr....probably any one of them) before automatically jumping to the "tabloid conclusion" that locking 'em up and throwing away the key has any impact on frequency or intensity of crime.

I have also worked all over Asia and the Middle East...and parts of the US and Europe...and have seen plenty of lawless places. The trouble with using personal experience is that it rarely equates with the wider reality. I recently left my sat-nav in a public street in the UK all afternoon - it was there when I came back. I've had stuff nicked in different countries.....it doesn't provide empirical evidence of anything at all. Draconian punishment regimes have been shown not to work in crime reduction at all. Look at the USA, especially states like Texas and Florida which have among the most severe penalties while consistently havong high offence rates. But on the other hand, if you are happy living in authoritarian countries, be my guest. It tends to work that the draconian attitude towards citizens extends right across the board......complain about a canal being shut or about spending levels being cut...and - whoosh - bye-bye....that's you off the streets for a few years or decades. And do remember that when you live in a society with draconian punitive regimes, it's the shadowy people in the government who gets to choose what's right and wrong, not the person on the Clapham bendy-bus.