Bottisham Lode

[stort_mark]

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.

[Chris Pink]

I have read several accounts of recent attempts to navigate some of the lodes off the Cam, including the Bottisham Lode,

 

Tell me more, do, I was brought up within spitting distance of Bottisham Lode and this and Reach Lode used to be my stomping grounds.

[magpie patrick]

I don't know whether it is still there but in 1992 there were what I took to be stop plan groves set in masonry or brick supports, several hundred metres up from the river Cam. I noted them and carried on looking for the lock: only afterwards did it dawn on me that if the staunch had a guillotine gate (And I think most fenland ones did) then the structure would have looked exactly like this...

[stort_mark]

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?

[magpie patrick]

I'll think on a bit more and look up my pictures from then: that is if I still have them... I didn't measure the location and 16 years on all I can say is 920m from the Cam is an entirely plausible distnace for the structure I saw.

 

Do the mitre gates at the entrance point outwards towards the Cam? If so they are designed to stop flood water entering the lode from the Cam and are not a navigation structure as such. Whenever the Cam gets higher than the lode water pressure will close them, and when water levels drop the discharge from the lode will open them again.

 

Do you have any pics or can you post the map you have?

[stort_mark]

I'll think on a bit more and look up my pictures from then: that is if I still have them... I didn't measure the location and 16 years on all I can say is 920m from the Cam is an entirely plausible distnace for the structure I saw.

 

Do the mitre gates at the entrance point outwards towards the Cam? If so they are designed to stop flood water entering the lode from the Cam and are not a navigation structure as such. Whenever the Cam gets higher than the lode water pressure will close them, and when water levels drop the discharge from the lode will open them again.

 

Do you have any pics or can you post the map you have?

 

 

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?

[Chris Pink]

to boldly go...

[stort_mark]

Do the mitre gates at the entrance point outwards towards the Cam? If so they are designed to stop flood water entering the lode from the Cam and are not a navigation structure as such. Whenever the Cam gets higher than the lode water pressure will close them, and when water levels drop the discharge from the lode will open them again.

 

Do you have any pics or can you post the map you have?

 

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.

[Chris Pink]

The picture is indeed from the Tuesday Night Club. showing a single gated lock, the next lode North, Swaffham Bulbeck lode is shown as having a guillotine gate one end and mitre the other, in working condition.

 

http://www.tuesdaynightclub.co.uk/Tour_04/Tour04_21.html gives a little information about the entrance locks.

 

Bottisham Lode is variously listed as 'un-navigable' and 'suitable for boats up to 97'6"' It looks like Swaffham Bulbeck Lode is navigable for 60' narrow boats.

 

The village i was brought up in, Swaffham Bulbeck has mooring rings about 3' up the walls of houses in the end of the village called Commercial End. A big grain area and boats would come up on spring tides in the 17th and 18th centuries. All the pictures I've seen show wherry like boats.

[magpie patrick]

Hi Chris, It's a lock in that it has lock type gates but it's actually a flood control structure not a navigation structure. The pic that Mark has a link to is, as far as I'm aware, the original flash lock.

 

I'm no expert on either the Fenland waterways or flash locks but I believe the fenland staunches were generally guillotines and also that they were kept raised until water needed to be impounded rather than the more usual practice of keeping the water impounded (gates closed) until it needed to be released. This does suggest that Fenland Staunches were not related to mills, which would have needed a head of water.

 

It is an area with some rather odd locks though... and much history that is either undocumented or not widely published. Like Mark's pools upstream of the flash lock: I'm still scratching my head about those

[stort_mark]

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.

[stort_mark]

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.

[Max Sinclair]

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.

I think it would be difficult to lift a single guillotine gate with the full weight of the river behind it. Watergates or flash locks tended to be an open gate frame butting up against a ground cill and brick or stone walls,sealed with a series of drop in paddles or rimmers. A tedious business but time didn't matter. My photograph of the watergate on the navigable River Teme illustrates the principle.

[stort_mark]

I think it would be difficult to lift a single guillotine gate with the full weight of the river behind it. Watergates or flash locks tended to be an open gate frame butting up against a ground cill and brick or stone walls,sealed with a series of drop in paddles or rimmers. A tedious business but time didn't matter. My photograph of the watergate on the navigable River Teme illustrates the principle.

 

Where is your photograph? I'm interested!

 

I recently received a copy of "The Canals of Eastern England", one of the Hadfield series, and have been very disappointed at its coverage of Bottisham Lode. There is, arguably, more useful and original historical information in this thread than in the book. I'm getting a bit disillusioned with this series of books (and I spent a fortune on this volume, and it had to be shipped from Australia!). The chapters on the Lee and Stort are pretty weak as well.

[Max Sinclair]

Where is your photograph? I'm interested!

 

I recently received a copy of "The Canals of Eastern England", one of the Hadfield series, and have been very disappointed at its coverage of Bottisham Lode. There is, arguably, more useful and original historical information in this thread than in the book. I'm getting a bit disillusioned with this series of books (and I spent a fortune on this volume, and it had to be shipped from Australia!). The chapters on the Lee and Stort are pretty weak as well.

It appears in CanalScape BCN web page in my (Robert) set as well as the flash at Cookley on the Stour.

[stort_mark]

It appears in CanalScape BCN web page in my (Robert) set as well as the flash at Cookley on the Stour.

(Is it me or is the Internet shockingly slow this evening? Every page is taking several minutes to load! I used to have quicker access in Vietnam!)

 

These are good photos...but are there any flash locks still in existence? Are there any remains on the Teme or the Stour?

[old john]

Hi

 

I'm new to these forums having just come across this thread and having registered to reply to it.

 

A useful book for the area from Bottisham Lode to Upware and Burwell is An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Cambridgeshire: Volume Two North-East Cambridgeshireby the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, published 1972. I assume NE Cambs defined the area before the Isle of Ely, Huntingdonshire and the Soak of Peterborough were added to Cambridgeshire.

 

The Sectional Preface includes a subsection on Fen Drainage (pp liv-lxvi), from the pre-Roman natural drainage and there are six pages of maps showing the drains and lodes at different historical periods from the natural drainage to the mid 19th-century (pp lvi-lxi)

 

There's a photo of the winding gear for the guillotine gate at the position on Bottisham Lode discussed in this thread. It's one of three photos on Plate 117 and is described there as "LODE (29) Lock, 1875 (demolished 1968)." The number 29 in brackets is a cross-reference to the text on page 81 and the map on page 82. The text on page 81 says,

 

a(29) LOCK (TL 51656513; Plate 117)of 'flash' type, on Bottisham Lode, has whie brick retaining walls, floor paved with stone flags, timber gate with cast-iron fittings and hoisting equipment. It was built in 1875 by J.A.Smith of Thetford at a cost of £294 (Swaffham I.D.B. Minutes, March and Sept. 1875). The walls are 11 ft. 9ins. apart and splay at the ends. The gate-raising mechanism consists of a winding drum with ratchetted cogwheels in a braced timber frame; it had a large manually-operated winding wheel. (Timber demolished in 1968).

 

In the mid-1980s two families, mine and another, comprising in total four adults and four children, took a Mirror dinghy and one or two canoes from Quy Water down on to the Cam. We launched in the village of Stow cum Quy, just downstream of the bridge that takes Station Road over the stream. We rowed the Mirror and paddled the canoes downstream, behind Anglesey Abbey and along the millstream to Lode Mill. There we carried the boats round the mill and relaunched immediately below the mill. The water there turned out to be very shallow, so the boats couldn't float if any people were on board. So the other father and I walked in the stream with the boats, while the others walked along the bank. Once in the lode proper, it was deep enough for us all to get on board again, but the lode was too narrow for the Mirror's oars. We had to tie the Mirror's painter round the aft cockpit of the double canoe and the two fathers took it in turns to paddle and tow the Mirror with 5 or 6 people on board! We did eventually make it down to the Cam.

 

I hope some of this may be of interest to some contributors to this thread.

 

old john

[stort_mark]

Hi

 

I'm new to these forums having just come across this thread and having registered to reply to it.

 

....

 

In the mid-1980s two families, mine and another, comprising in total four adults and four children, took a Mirror dinghy and one or two canoes from Quy Water down on to the Cam. We launched in the village of Stow cum Quy, just downstream of the bridge that takes Station Road over the stream. We rowed the Mirror and paddled the canoes downstream, behind Anglesey Abbey and along the millstream to Lode Mill. There we carried the boats round the mill and relaunched immediately below the mill. The water there turned out to be very shallow, so the boats couldn't float if any people were on board. So the other father and I walked in the stream with the boats, while the others walked along the bank. Once in the lode proper, it was deep enough for us all to get on board again, but the lode was too narrow for the Mirror's oars. We had to tie the Mirror's painter round the aft cockpit of the double canoe and the two fathers took it in turns to paddle and tow the Mirror with 5 or 6 people on board! We did eventually make it down to the Cam.

 

I hope some of this may be of interest to some contributors to this thread.

 

old john

 

John,

This is really interesting. It sounds as if your expedition was the last ever successful navigation of the entire Bottisham Lode.

Did you take photos?

Was any of the flash lock still present then?

I have wondered many times how navigation on Bottisham Lode ended. I don't think the EA can just let it die without an Act of Parliament. The flood lock gates at the Cam end are padlocked now.

Edited September 7, 2008 by stort_mark

[old john]

John,

This is really interesting. It sounds as if your expedition was the last ever successful navigation of the entire Bottisham Lode.

Did you take photos?

Was any of the flash lock still present then?

I have wondered many times how navigation on Bottisham Lode ended. I don't think the EA can just let it die without an Act of Parliament. The flood lock gates at the Cam end are padlocked now.

 

Mark

 

Yes, ours may well have been the last navigation of the entire Bottisham Lode. At least one local expressed surprise at seeing us and said they had never seen a boat in the lode before. At one point, I was surprised to see someone I knew (Mr Brown of Bottisham) looking down at us from between trees and bushes on the bank. He said he was at the end of a garden in Lode, belonging to a friend he was visiting.

 

I don't remember taking any photos and my wife says that she doesn't either. Children from both families had just had chickenpox and were still being quarantined from other children. They were fed up with being housebound and we thought that this trip would be a bit of an adventure. It was! Behind Anglesey Abbey a tree had fallen across the stream and there was a thin curtain of vegetation hanging down from it through which we had to manoeuvre. Also there's a very low bridge to a rear entrance to Anglesey Abbey, but we managed to get the boats and occupants under it, I can't remember how! The children are all now grown up, of course, and the other parents are currently in France. When they return I'll ask them if they have any photos of the trip. We still have the double canoe used to tow the Mirror, which belonged to the other family. I don't know if the other family still has the Mirror.

 

My guess is that in the mid-1980s the lock was much as it is now, because it was demolished in 1968. I had not expected to see a lock at that position rather than at the mouth of the lode. I think that at the time I probably mistook it for part of an old dismantled bridge. I had heard or read that some MPs had been shareholders in the early railways, and that a law was passed that allowed railways to cross minor waterways without having to ramp the railway up high enough over these waterways to allow the vessels to pass underneath. The Cambridge-Mildenhall railway opened in 1884, though I don't know when construction started. I think I mistook the lock to be where such a railway crossed the lode, with the retaining walls to support the banks and the now missing horizontal 'deck'. However, I soon discovered that the railway crossed the lode right up by Lode village which had a station, giving its name to Station Road.

 

Nearby the lock there was once a wind pump, (36 on the map on p82 of the Inventory I mentioned in my first post above). This is mentioned on page 83. "In 1830 the Drainage Commission therefore erected another windpump on Bottisham Lode, known as Horningsea Mill (36)."

 

I once sailed up Burwell Lode with a westerly wind and a spinnaker set, but without room to tack on the way back, I had to motor! I seem to remember having to lower the sails and the mast for a bridge at one point on the way to Burwell. Most recent years, but not this year, we have gone up Wicken Lode in April or early May before the weed grows much. Turning into Wicken Lode from Reach/Burwell Lode the water suddenly clears, as Wicken Lode is a chalk stream. At that time of year, with less weed than later, it's good for seeing the fish. We turn at the junction with Monks Lode, which is as far as navigation is allowed.

 

Swaffham Bulbeck Lode seems to have a functioning lock at its mouth, but I think it's only for EA craft.