Foxton is Rubbish

[Jon57]

13 minutes ago, Goliath said:

1972 was a good year for Slade 👍

not sure

dont know yet if we’re aiming to get there today or tomorrow. 
 

I’ll let you know 

 

[IanD]

5 minutes ago, noddyboater said:

It was terribly irresponsible of me, I apologise. 

But it was at a time when people on here were raving about how good it was,  I remember that much. 

Here's a couple more reviews to level it out then.. 

Bridge 61 was great,  apart from the homemade chilli that was far too hot.

The village pub at Yelvertoft had recently changed hands,  worth the walk, we were made very welcome. It's probably a house now. 

 

Not irresponsible, but I've also had the experience of going to a pub that somebody has raved about and found it wasn't up to scratch, only to discover afterwards that their visit was so long ago that the pub had changed hands more than once since -- online reviews are particularly bad for this... 😞

 

Sometimes reviews are (inevitably) also coloured by the personal preferences of the reviewer -- for example your comment about the chilli makes me want to go there, I find most pub chillies are too bland and mild... 🙂

 

Same thing with comments about beers -- "all they had was nasty hoppy IPAs and pale ales, no proper bitter" would encourage me to go, not put me off.

 

However duff/off beers or food are never good, and especially being fobbed off when complaining. On our recent visit to Cambridge there was one beer (not mine) that tasted a bit odd (not vinegary, just a strange flavour), when taken back (and tasted by the barman) the reply was "Yep, that's what it's supposed to taste like -- but if you're not happy, what would you like instead?". All said with a smile and no sense of telling off a whinging customer. Now *that's* top-class service... 🙂

[Jon57]

This was the first single lock we did since setting off in June by ourselves after Foxton. The wharf pub was a welcome sight after all that work. 😂 That was 3 weeks ago. Beer was fine, food looked ok(didn't eat on this vist) well worth the trip just to do the lock. 🤣

[IanD]

1 minute ago, Jon57 said:

This was the first single lock we did since setting off in June by ourselves after Foxton. The wharf pub was a welcome sight after all that work. 😂 That was 3 weeks ago. Beer was fine, food looked ok(didn't eat on this vist) well worth the trip just to do the lock. 🤣

 

Recognise that -- IIRC it broke shortly after we'd gone through it, thankfully *after* leaving the Wharf... 😞

[Tonka]

38 minutes ago, noddyboater said:

It was terribly irresponsible of me, I apologise. 

But it was at a time when people on here were raving about how good it was,  I remember that much. 

Here's a couple more reviews to level it out then.. 

Bridge 61 was great,  apart from the homemade chilli that was far too hot.

The village pub at Yelvertoft had recently changed hands,  worth the walk, we were made very welcome. It's probably a house now. 

The pub in Yelvertoft is The Knightly Arms I believe and recently had a good review on Facebook

[Victor Vectis]

Welford Lock gets my vote as being the nicest on the whole system.

[Jon57]

41 minutes ago, Victor Vectis said:

Welford Lock gets my vote as being the nicest on the whole system.

Yep a thing of beauty. Also made at Stanley ferry workshops. The amount it gets used should last 30 yrs 😁

[Tonka]

29 minutes ago, Jon57 said:

Yep a thing of beauty. Also made at Stanley ferry workshops. The amount it gets used should last 30 yrs 😁

you do realise there are 2 marinas above it

[Jon57]

44 minutes ago, Tonka said:

you do realise there are 2 marinas above it

Yep. How often do they move?

[Tonka]

4 minutes ago, Jon57 said:

Yep. How often do they move?

the marina's never move but some of the boats may

[john6767]

4 hours ago, J R ALSOP said:

The  two sanitary stations down the Montgomery are they best I have seen for many a long year.

Yes they are quite good, and the one on the arm has a visitors book if I remember correctly, but in my opinion Ripon beats them for the ambiance 😀

[matty40s]

5 hours ago, Victor Vectis said:

Welford Lock gets my vote as being the nicest on the whole system.

I think so too.

We were there at Easter, the food, service  and beer were excellent

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by matty40s

[Jon57]

53 minutes ago, matty40s said:

I think so too.

We were there at Easter, the food, service  and beer were excellent

 

👍

[Mike Todd]

On 05/09/2023 at 12:40, IanD said:

When I was looking for a marina mooring earlier this year there were hardly any free, one comment was "I expected there would be space by now as people went out for the summer, but nobody's moving".

 

Foxton is off the main drag for hire boats anyway, whenever I've been through there haven't been that many of them around -- and if privately owned boats are moving less than normal, that could also explain the lack of boats...

Are there none out of Mkt Harborough anymore?

[Mike Tee]

there were a couple of Wyvern boats there on Saturday evening

[matty40s]

3 hours ago, Mike Tee said:

there were a couple of Wyvern boats there on Saturday evening

Shhh, dont let facts get in the way of a good supposition.

[dmr]

Had a late afternoon drink in the little Bridge 61 pub yesterday.  Its as good as I remember it, good beer and an unspoilt old canal pub style interior, so really sad it shuts at 5. The food menu looked good too. The owner insists there is no business to be had after 5, though we had to dissapoint several potential customers as we finished our pints on the bench outside.

I propose a few boaters need to get together, visit, and see if the owner will open to special order 😀.

[IanD]

11 hours ago, matty40s said:

Shhh, dont let facts get in the way of a good supposition.

Not supposition, I've been through Foxton more than once and I thought there seemed to be relatively few hire boats there, certainly compared to other famous sights on the canals (Bingley, Pontcyssylte, Anderton...).

Edited September 7, 2023 by IanD
correction

[alan_fincher]

22 hours ago, Jon57 said:

This was the first single lock we did since setting off in June by ourselves after Foxton. The wharf pub was a welcome sight after all that work. 😂 That was 3 weeks ago. Beer was fine, food looked ok(didn't eat on this vist) well worth the trip just to do the lock. 🤣

 

22 hours ago, Victor Vectis said:

Welford Lock gets my vote as being the nicest on the whole system.

 

17 hours ago, matty40s said:

I think so too.

We were there at Easter, the food, service  and beer were excellent

 

 

That is a lock that certainly looks better than back in the 1970s.

 

Then it had just acquired gates with that awful hydraulic paddle gear;

21 hours ago, Jon57 said:

Yep a thing of beauty. Also made at Stanley ferry workshops. The amount it gets used should last 30 yrs 😁

 

Everything I had heard until you posted this was that, irrespective of intended destination, broad/wide canal gates are manufactured at Stanley Ferry, whereas those for narrow canals are manufactured at Bradley on the BCN.

 

So I'm kind of surprised if Stanley Ferry made this one.

[Captain Pegg]

10 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

 

 

 

That is a lock that certainly looks better than back in the 1970s.

 

Then it had just acquired gates with that awful hydraulic paddle gear;

 

Everything I had heard until you posted this was that, irrespective of intended destination, broad/wide canal gates are manufactured at Stanley Ferry, whereas those for narrow canals are manufactured at Bradley on the BCN.

 

So I'm kind of surprised if Stanley Ferry made this one.

I think the general plan is narrow at Bradley and broad at Stanley Ferry but to align demand and capacity it appears it isn’t an unbreakable rule.

 

I have noted other narrow gates built at Stanley Ferry.

 

Edited September 7, 2023 by Captain Pegg

[Captain Pegg]

3 hours ago, dmr said:

Had a late afternoon drink in the little Bridge 61 pub yesterday.  Its as good as I remember it, good beer and an unspoilt old canal pub style interior, so really sad it shuts at 5. The food menu looked good too. The owner insists there is no business to be had after 5, though we had to dissapoint several potential customers as we finished our pints on the bench outside.

I propose a few boaters need to get together, visit, and see if the owner will open to special order 😀.

The unintended consequence of that is likely to be that you pressurise the proprietors to work ‘unpaid overtime’.

 

I suspect they set their opening times around a reasonable working day for themselves.

 

To open in the evening is likely to be difficult for them to justify as it would require hiring additional staff.

 

A check online suggests there may no longer be hire boats based at Market Harborough. While nowhere is likely to be able to survive on passing hire boat trade the presence of a hire base about an hour or two’s cruise away is a likely source of useful trade if only for one or two days a week. Enough to make the difference between opening or not on an evening at least at weekends perhaps. Hire boat traffic is often very specific to the day in question.

 

[Rob-M]

When we were in Market Harborough last year I think it was just day boats operating from the basin but there were plenty of hire boats coming and going whilst we were stopped there.  It seems to be a destination for quite a few ABC boats.

[IanD]

22 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

The unintended consequence of that is likely to be that you pressurise the proprietors to work ‘unpaid overtime’.

 

I suspect they set their opening times around a reasonable working day for themselves.

 

To open in the evening is likely to be difficult for them to justify as it would require hiring additional staff.

 

A check online suggests there may no longer be hire boats based at Market Harborough. While nowhere is likely to be able to survive on passing hire boat trade the presence of a hire base about an hour or two’s cruise away is a likely source of useful trade if only for one or two days a week. Enough to make the difference between opening or not on an evening at least at weekends perhaps. Hire boat traffic is often very specific to the day in question.

 

 

For example Llangollen which is much busier midweek when most of the weekend-to-weekend hire boats arrive and leave than it is at weekends when they're back at base being turned round.

 

Where are the nearest hire bases to Foxton nowadays?

 

I fondly remember Keith Jones's base below the locks, the office was a converted 45' goods van. Worth it to hire a steam-powered boat (Firefly) for 2 weeks though... 😉

 

Edited September 7, 2023 by IanD

[pete23]

On 06/09/2023 at 11:54, Victor Vectis said:

Welford Lock gets my vote as being the nicest on the whole system.

The Welford Arm is lovely,   Even more so now as the “ Friends of the Welford Arm “ look after it and carry out maintenance..

 

20 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

For example Llangollen which is much busier midweek when most of the weekend-to-weekend hire boats arrive and leave than it is at weekends when they're back at base being turned round.

 

Where are the nearest hire bases to Foxton nowadays?

 

I fondly remember Keith Jones's base below the locks, the office was a converted 45' goods van. Worth it to hire a steam-powered boat (Firefly) for 2 weeks though... 😉

 

That’s going back a few years, I guess 30yrs plus some.

 

[Captain Pegg]

North Kilworth is a hire base these days.

 

Foxton (or Market Harborough) is a sensible destination from UCC at Braunston, Kate Boats at Stockton Top, Clifton Cruisers at Rugby, Wyvern at Linslade and ABC at Rugby or Gayton.