12 weeks on the cut

[Bill Kennedy]

Chapter 9 – Week 8, Grand Union/Stratford Canal

 

Saturday June 19

Markets and Farewells

 

Awoke to a bright morning at our Berkhamsted mooring and at 8am strolled to the Saturday market, joined by Brian and Jane as we passed their boat. On Jane’s advice, we headed straight for the WI stall. I can only think of “Calendar Girls” whenever I hear of anything connected with the Women’s’ Institute and I can tell you it made me look at the ladies manning the stall in a whole new light. In typical fashion I came away with enough forbidden goodies to feed an army. Next the fruit and vegetable stall, some larkspurs from the flower man for pressing and then a brief stop at the Waitrose with Jane while Bill and Brian returned to the boats and put the kettle on.

 

We made a late getaway because of the market and would be travelling with Jane and Brian only as far as Marsworth where they would be branching off down the Aylesbury Arm, reported in Nicholson’s guide as “isolated and remote - one of the most peaceful stretches of canal in the country” We continued our climb up the Chilterns through deliciously rural upland country, in parts reminiscent of the enveloping green corridors of Northern Wales and in other parts, rolling, sparsely wooded green hills of grazing country. The sky was full of the most amazing fluffy cumulus clouds, paradoxically, not a sign of a fine day here, but Brian tells me, of unstable weather.

 

We reached the summit at Cowroast Lock, with its old toll office. It is the site of permanent moorings for many beautiful boats and we can understand why people choose to make this their base. The air is clean and refreshing to breathe. There was then about three miles or so of cruising through this delightful area before our descent began and the locks came thick and fast. However I seemed not to notice as the scenery, especially as we came upon the Tringford Reservoir was picture postcard perfect. The verges of this large body of water have been landscaped and are an immensely popular recreational destination.

 

We stopped here for lunch which we shared with Brian and Jane as shortly we must part company. We really have been delighted to have them as journeymen and have had some good laughs. Jane and I have been very similar in our observation of nature. She could tell as I take pictures of the same sorts of things that she does and as she very kindly allowed me to read some of her travel journals, filled with her quite exquisite drawings.

 

The unstable weather that Brian had predicted then rolled in with cold, wind and spits of rain so we retired to our boat for pudding and coffee and further chatting. Finally it was time to push on. We said our goodbyes at the next lock, with photos for the journal and very pleasant memories.

 

Bill and I pushed on through seven more locks and a manual swivel bridge. At this last structure, the second only that we’d encountered, and the first manual one, Bill decided to have a wee in the bushes while I managed the boat. Oh how tempted I was to toot the horn. We travelled towards a rain cell that fortunately decided to skirt around us at the last minute and we have moored just short of a water point which we’ll attend to first up, before heading off for the day. We saw the chalk lion of Whipsnade quite clearly in the distance as we moored. We have gone through 22 locks in distance of only eleven miles but have had one of our most enjoyable days to date.

 

Sunday June 20

Moseying Along

 

We woke after a very good sleep – it must have been all those locks. Then Bill started making boat noises and told me I could have breakfast at the water point just before the first lock so I knew it was time to get up and get going. At the second lock I peeped over the hedge at what was once the smallest chapel in Buckinghamshire which has now been converted to a private residence. It still has its bell tower and they have added a conservatory with sympathetic gothic framing - all quite exquisite.

 

We continued our descent from the Chilterns through some remote and very old areas in canal terms. One of the lock cottages had 1831 above its lintel and I tried to relate that to what was happening in Australia at that time. We passed by Cheddington where the great train robbery took place and crossed from Buckinghamshire into Bedfordshire. As we passed through Leighton Buzzard we stopped at a canalside Tescos for provisions - so convenient.

 

This afternoon we have travelled through Fenny Stratford and on into Milton Keynes. The latter is a modern (since 1970’s) amalgamation of a number of very old villages, interspersed with well designed modern cluster housing to form a significant city. One of the canal guides is a tad scathing about the blend but I was quite impressed with the way this had been done. There are huge tracts of beautiful parkland, picnic grounds and gardens linking the villages, which are like suburbs and the canal wanders through all this, not encroached on in the least by the housing, in fact, as Bill commented, it’s as if the canal has been screened from the town. I walked by the boat for an hour this afternoon and enjoyed it immensely.

 

Rain came to annoy us this afternoon and hastened my “4.30 syndrome. We moored for the night by one of the old villages, Great Linford, towards the centre of Milton Keynes. Apparently it has some lovely yellow stone buildings in its medieval town centre and we will go for a walk in the morning to have a look.

 

Monday June 21

Rural Peace and War

 

Something chose to wake me around 3.30am and I guess that set the tone for the rest of the day. It was overcast and nippy and today was the day I’d volunteered to do some of the driving – just my luck. At just after 6am we did our promised reconnoiter of the very old village of Great Linford, in particular, a cluster of splendid yellow stone buildings in a dedicated green belt. There was a Manor House from the early 1800’s and its splendid big barn, a matching pair of Georgian houses facing the manor house, St Andrew’s Church, the oldest part of which dated from the thirteenth century and a school house from the seventeenth century with three alms houses on either side of it. Most of it appears to be used now as artists’ studios and a gallery. The fact that the land around it has been retained adds so much to its charm.

 

We still managed to get away by 7.30am, something Bill wanted to do as we have six hours of travel today to Stoke Bruerne and we wanted to be in time to see the canal museum there. We passed through some delightfully rural areas, with cattle at the canalside and charming, yellow stone cottaged villages like Cosgrove, with its exquisite bridge. Locks were surprisingly few and far between so I spent some time in the kitchen creating lunch which was to be a hot fish/rice mornay with fresh asparagus spears and oven crusty bread. Just before lunch as we began to climb the seven locks into Stoke Bruerne the rain came. Now English rain is supposed to be gentle but this stuff was cold (I swear I felt a sting of an ice particle hitting my hand), hard (driven by a quite unpleasant wind that made gates lock swing open and the boat hard to handle) and very, very wet. The rain brought with it an urge in Bill to keep going to our destination (“I’m wet anyway”) and in me a wish to stop until it was over and when I couldn’t, an early onset of my “4.30 syndrome”. I scraped all of my lock entries and in one holding pound, where I was pulled up close to the lock entry, waiting for Bill to set it and hanging onto the boat by the normally adequate middle rope, when Bill opened the bottom gate paddles, the rush of water was so strong it caught the bow of the boat and pulled it away from me. The wind did the rest; I just couldn’t hold it and got myself some rope burns for trying. I yelled several times to Bill up at the lock and finally he heard me and came running. By this time the boat was about ten feet from shore with me still desperately hanging onto the rope and even he had difficulty reining it in. At the next pound I tied up and went inside to find the saucepan of asparagus spears and their water on the kitchen floor and the baguette lying on the floor in the water. The contents of the dressing table were in one of the underwear drawers that had slid open. And still he insisted on going on. I had regained my sanity by the time we’d cleared the last two locks (at which I impressed him by leaving a paddle open so the lock was taking ages to fill and then trying to open a lock gate by pushing from the wrong side.) and decided it was a day for lunch at the pub. But let me tell you, God must be a woman ‘cause guess whose side of the bed the skylight leaked on.

 

The rest of the day was dedicated to a visit to the canal museum here at Stoke Bruerne and then a walk around the town followed by a sleep for me for a few hours. Happy hour was spent on the foredeck (the sun was now shining), watching the rabbits playing in the adjoining field. For dinner we popped the fish dish in the oven (it had been saved from a fate with the floor as it was in the fridge), gave the asparagus an extra wash and micro waved it, and cut the wet bit off the baguette and popped it in the oven. Tasted great - all pain was gone.

 

Tuesday June 22

Not getting to Braunston

 

Bill has named today’s chapter as it was his ambition today to complete the huge circle in green on our map by making it to Braunston. He had us up and away by 7.30am and into the Blisworth Tunnel which is 3060 yards long and took about half an hour to traverse. It is the longest navigable tunnel on the canal system, was opened in 1805 and functioned until the late 1970’s when it was closed for extensive renovation before reopening in 1984. You could recognize the new sections which were in the midsection and quite extensive. I took some interesting photos with the flash of several leaks spouting reddish water that presumably contains some iron compounds. The Pearson’s guide tells me that the area was one riddled with ironstone quarries which serviced a furnace on the Northampton Arm so this doesn’t surprise me. There were three ventilator shafts from the top of the hill to the tunnel but try as I might I couldn’t time a picture looking up any of these as we went by - only managed an eye full of water. This tunnel has no towpath and so the horses pulling the boats could not enter. The boats were “legged through” by men who lay on their backs on planks spread laterally from the bow of the boat and they literally walked the boat through the tunnel. The “leggers hut” still remains at the south portal of the tunnel. These registered “leggers” who wore brass armbands proclaiming their role, were ultimately replaced by a steam tug service which continued until 1936 when all boats were motorised.

 

We continued ahead to Gayton Junction, skirting Northampton and then travelling through some delightfully rural areas with farms and tiny villages with names like Bugbrooke, Nether Heyford and Weedon Bec adjacent to the canal. Interestingly, for quite a distance of today’s travel, Watling Street (the old Roman Road), the canal (from 1800), the railway (from the late 1800’s) and the M1, all run in parallel within sight of one another. It would seem the Romans knew something of topography. One of the marinas we passed was the site of an old Roman village.

 

Around 11.15am we went in search of a craft shop marked on the Pearson’s map and an hour later hadn’t been able to locate it and the locals knew nothing about it. I thought I owed Bill lunch at the pub so we sat in the gardens of “The Narrowboat Inn” and ate a sandwich and had a drink. Knowing then that there were seven locks ahead of us to Norton Junction and another seven if we wanted to get to Braunston we thought we’d better get going.

 

At the approach to the bottom lock of the seven Buckby locks we were signaled by a chap in a very nice looking boat named “Antidote” who asked if he might travel up with us. After we readily agreed he came up to me at the lock and told me he was by himself and hadn’t been well after eating a dodgy pizza and couldn’t work the locks. The Buckby locks are wide locks with huge beams that one has to use every ounce of energy to move by using one’s entire body weight against the gate beam to start it moving. They are beasts, to say the least and we now had to open four gates instead of two on every lock. At the second one I just couldn’t move the gate as the wind had hold of it so Bill climbed up the ladder from the lock chamber and did the rest of the locks. By the last one, Bill accidentally left a paddle open so the lock didn’t fill properly and he said with a smirk and a not so subtle reference to my yesterday, “it’s because I’m tired”. At the last lock the chap was five minutes from home and thanked us with a wave. We were more than happy to have helped him. (You can see the story of Antidote at www.theantidote.info/)

 

And so we didn’t get to Braunston and just managed to get the last mooring at Norton Junction, adjacent to a drain, next to a canal dredge and beside a road works yard, but we were too tired to care.

 

Wednesday June 23 2004

A day for thermals and locks

 

Britain has decided to show us her worst weather after nearly eight weeks. England has had half the normal month’s rain in the last 24 hours and wind has been gusting at up to 50mph. The temperature had dropped to about 12 degrees maximum so it has been a day for the thermals and a beanie. Makes managing a narrowboat on a pound quite interesting - you tend to be blown around like a matchstick.

 

We set out from Norton Junction at 7.30am and traversed Braunston tunnel, some 2042 yards in length. The soot staining the walls from the old towing tugs is still visible and the old brickwork fascinating - if those walls could only talk. Once again we saw ferrous and calcium compound deposits running down the tunnel wall in patches where water has seeped or has flowed from pipes channeled out through the tunnel wall. I managed this time to take a picture up the centre of one of the ventilation shafts. Then the locks came thick and fast with the six Braunston locks which I managed quite well, even though the locks of the Grand Union have a reputation for being very difficult. After the locks, during the journey to Braunston, I managed to concoct a lamb and pasta dish which, with a salad and a bake-it-in-the-oven baguette has served us well for lunch. In this weather there was a need for comfort food.

 

We have travelled this section without a detailed map as none of our guide books cover this section so the Braunston junction with its two pretty iron bridges came up sooner than we expected and, thanks to miniscule sign posts, we almost missed the turn. With a bit of clever backing and filling from Bill, we were on our way again.

 

This afternoon, amid squalls and gales, we pushed on down another three and then a set of four locks. A boat went down the first three with us and then decided they’d had enough of the weather and found a mooring while the weather was so horrid. We thought then that at least one of the pair following us would be a substitute, but no, they’d had enough too, and pulled over, so we went on alone. Later in the afternoon when at least the rain eased, we passed a little more boat traffic. It seemed that many of the people who’d gone to ground were emerging for a last run of the day. Finally, about 5pm, we too had had enough and are currently moored at the foot of a lock, in the midst of nowhere, for the night. Thankfully the lunch leftovers were enough for a warm tea which we ate with a wine and our cosy little fire going. The TV tells us we can expect some more of the same weather tomorrow. Late tomorrow morning we are meeting Will Abbey for the service of the boat as it has done its three hundred hours of travel. We have only a short way to go to the meeting place so tomorrow will be largely a rest day.

 

Thursday June 24

Spit and Polish

 

We made our earliest start yet at 6.30am because, without a map we were not quite sure how far away our rendezvous at Bridge 34 is and we have to do a bit of boat washing and tidying. The early start was fortunate as there were the three Radford locks to traverse to get to our meeting place, a pound between a road bridge (34) and a lock, where Will can drive his car into the British Waterways service depot and come alongside the boat. There is just room for us in the pound without obstructing the approach to the lock but I’m sure in this wind that people would like more room to manoeuvre but it can’t be helped. All we can do when we hear a boat approaching is to stick our head out and tell them we are waiting for a service vehicle. All have been very understanding to date.

 

We have scrubbed (literally) the boat to the best of our ability. Using canal water just leaves brown spots all over the paint work so we had to use multiple basins of soapy water and then rinse it off by hand with more basins of clean water, sponging it dry as we did so. Cleaning my little car seems a breeze by comparison. I am somewhat embarrassed by all the chips (dare I say chunks) out of the paintwork, and the scratches, but Bill is a little more philosophical. I tried to do a cut and polish of the long scratch down the side with toothpaste but to no avail. Will Abbey said he would be here late morning, so as we are on “Kennedy Time”, we have been ready and waiting since about 9.30am. Hence the writing of the journal entry now and not at the end of the day.

 

Around 10.30am I was sitting typing and said to Bill, “I can smell bitumen”. I looked up and saw clouds of smoke billowing up at the nearby bridge. I stood up and, to my surprise, there was a narrowboat under the bridge belching the smoke. It was a steam driven coal burning narrowboat with a butty in tow and all the men were in traditional boatmen’s costume. It carried a banner saying it was “The President” from the Black Country Museum. We watched, fascinated as it entered the lock and detached the butty and maneuvered it alongside. The things that can happen when you’re sitting with nothing to do.

 

Will arrived around 11am and after a cuppa and a discussion of our trip so far (had to show him the Thames pictures), he got to work. I was silly enough to tell him that the water pump doesn’t consistently pump water to the shower unless we turn the hand basin tap on first to get a continuous flow in the shower. He then spent an hour trying to correct this as he said we shouldn’t have the inconvenience. I did reassure him we don’t mind, but he insisted. This has necessitated taking all the food from the cupboard and he had his head in the kitchen cupboard for twenty minutes and I can’t tell you how many gallons of water have been used in the testing. We could have thrown buckets of it over the boat this morning if we’d known. Getting water will be another job for today. In addition, he has been unable to fix the problem and, as we discovered at bath time, are now unable to make the water run continuously.

 

Bill was hoping that the service would take about an hour and that today we’d be able to make a start on the Hatton Flight. However he is talking himself into a state of calm and has just mentioned that we’ll concentrate today, on just getting to the bottom of the Hatton Flight. Not having a map may make that a little hard to pinpoint.

 

After Will left we set off again, and travelled until about 5.30pm when we made it to what we thought was the foot of the Hatton Flight. There was a water point there and we filled up and then moored for the night, next to the towpath and across from a factory. We were beyond caring about the tone of the neighbourhood.

 

Friday June 25

Record Lock Day - Early Mark

 

Well, we did say we wanted to get stuck into the Hatton Flight early but setting off at 5.30am - I ask you. We snuck out, hopefully not waking the two boats who had breasted up in front of us last night, after the finish of the England/Portugal match, around 10pm. After the first two locks there was a long gap and we realised that these two were just a warm up and not part of the Hatton Flight at all. There was also a large pound above them with moorings and a pub but hey, too late now. And then the locks began at about 6.15am, all 21 of them. We decided to do three each, turn about, but Bill kept cheating so he did the lion’s share. We completed the job by 9.45am and fortunately all of the locks, save one, which had leaked and filled during the night, were almost empty so the task was made much easier. At the penultimate lock we remembered there’s a kiosk that sells the best chocolate muffins so we paused for a cuppa and a well deserved muffin at the top. Somehow the whole thing seemed so much easier than when we travelled down the flight earlier in our trip even though we travelled most of the way with another boat. Perhaps it’s the muscles I’ve developed.

 

We journeyed on, still mapless until we came to the obscure Kingswood junction. If you’d blinked you’d have missed it. It was like stepping back in time, returning to very old tiny locks, where there are only inches to spare either side of the boat. There are also quaint little iron bridges over the canal with a central split so the horse rope to the boat could pass through the bridge and original little Dutch gabled Lockkeepers houses - all from the late 1700’s.

 

Having been on the Grand Union and Oxford canals then the R Thames, then the Grand Union again, we haven’t been in a narrow lock for weeks. On the Grand Union we only used one lock gate but there was still more room than in these small fellows. Despite their small size they are deep and their gates very heavy. Bill did the first six locks as my right SI joint was making me aware of its existence but he didn’t need much persuading later when I asked to take over. The countryside, however, was charming - real Wind in the Willows territory - magical. At 3.30pm we did our 32nd lock for the day, our personal record. At the next lock there just happened to be a pub called The Fleur-de-Lys with a well reported restaurant. In view of our marathon day we gave ourselves an early mark, went to the pub for a drink and booked to return for dinner.

 

 

Progress This week Distance (miles) 72 Locks 115

Total Distance (miles)570 Locks 486

 

The journey continues………