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Location - May 1970


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I have recently come across the photograph (copywrite Ian McKechnie) below of a pair of independently operated motor's heading for Croxley in May 1970, but it is captioned as Marsworth. This caption can not be correct as these two boats would have gone up Marsworth Locks rather than down.

I am thinking Berkhamsted is a more likely contender, but am I right ? (it is a long time since I have been down that way !) :captain:

Note the interesting looking long shafts laying in the holds, and the motor on the left is pulling from the mast beam as it has no mast.

rope-trick-Marsworth.jpg.57e0a7f37b88b22ef7bd621917762061.jpg

Edited by pete harrison
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It is at Lock 53 Berkhamsted, which seems to be known as Broadwater these days - The bridge is the one in Lower Kings Road, leading from the town to the station.

Do you know which boats, please Pete?

Edited by alan_fincher
Added question.
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On 05/03/2018 at 16:22, alan_fincher said:

Thanks Pete.

If these were loaded on the Ashby, the trip is presumably one covered in the loading records that Nick Hill still has?

Correct - loaded at Gopsall Wharf on 18 May 1970 - STIRLING 18 tons 15 c.w.t. and OTLEY 18 tons 12 c.w.t. - and emptied at Croxley 22 May 1970, so not huge loads but every little helps :captain:

Edited by Athy
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Yes, that's the Gopsall truth. I've seen it a few times and, for a location so well-known in the annals of canal carrying, it is stunningly umimpressive.

As for the coal, there were so many pits in South Derbyshire and Leicestershire at that time that they could take their pick [pun not intended]: Measham, Moira, Rawdon, Swad (never called by its full name Swadlincote locally), Snibston(e) and more... 

Edited by Athy
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This was the South Midlands area of the National Coal Board, then. Rawdon was near Moira, and there were, as said others including Ellistown. To load at Gopsall however required a road carriage element. Sections of the Ashby Canal had been closed in 1944 and 1957 leaving carriage by road from the main operating collieries to a canal wharf an  option.

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On 05/03/2018 at 16:31, pete harrison said:

Correct - loaded at Gopsill Wharf on 18 May 1970 - STIRLING 18 tons 15 c.w.t. and OTLEY 18 tons 12 c.w.t. - and emptied at Croxley 22 May 1970, so not huge loads but every little helps :captain:

 

1 hour ago, Heartland said:

It is Gopsall Wharf, I believe

It is of course Gopsall Wharf. I did notice my typo shortly after I wrote it, but by then the one hour editing window had passed - so I just had to hope nobody would notice :captain:

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1 minute ago, pete harrison said:

 

It is of course Gopsall Wharf. I did notice my typo shortly after I wrote it, but by then the one hour editing window had passed - so I just had to hope nobody would notice :captain:

I've taken the liberty of editing it for you, Mr. Harrison.

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On ‎10‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 14:04, Athy said:

As for the coal, there were so many pits in South Derbyshire and Leicestershire at that time that they could take their pick [pun not intended]: Measham, Moira, Rawdon, Swad (never called by its full name Swadlincote locally), Snibston(e) and more... 

In 1969 boats were loading "Donnisthorpe singles" at Gopsall for Croxley.  Don't know if that is the right spelling.

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31 minutes ago, Waterway2go said:

In 1969 boats were loading "Donnisthorpe singles" at Gopsall for Croxley.  Don't know if that is the right spelling.

Of two of those names, yes, though Donisthorpe usually has just one "n"! It's near Measham, not sure if the collieries were linked (in the later years of the NCB, coal from some pits was transported underground and came to the surface at other, bigger pits, presumably because they had better facilities).

I wonder what the "singles" meant - perhaps that the coal was in separate lumps without dust, unlike for example "nutty slack", a mixture of small lumps and slack, which was dust + bits.

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I think that singles was anything that would pass through a 1" square grating, doubles through a 2" grating. When I was operating a Lancashire boiler with screw stokers what we wanted was dingles. Yes you guessed 1 1/2".

Tim

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Loading at Gopsall, July 1969

gopsall4.jpg

That's a most revealing picture. I had imagined the Gopsall operation as being small-scale, with just the occasional pair being loaded - yet there are five boats in the shot, suggesting three pairs, showing that it was a quite intensive traffic.

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Unfortunately my files seem to have gone walkabout and I can't remember which colliery the coal came from. In the early 70s boats loaded in bulk and we bagged it ourselves. We sold more by stopping at villages and advertising in the local paper than to boats. We did also have a contract for a while supplying all the Thames lock keepers with their winter supply in the autumn - they paid Thames Conservancy each week from their wages and we billed TC.

 

01j.rev_edited-1.jpg.dec163a8515796a64aa14f07e645dad2.jpg5aa662a175890_100_3938(2i).jpg.fccec202cc12a27421d7b0b2654fcdd2.jpg

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Unfortunately my files seem to have gone walkabout and I can't remember which colliery the coal came from. In the early 70s boats loaded in bulk and we bagged it ourselves. We sold more by stopping at villages and advertising in the local paper than to boats. We did also have a contract for a while supplying all the Thames lock keepers with their winter supply in the autumn - they paid Thames Conservancy each week from their wages and we billed TC.

 

01j.rev_edited-1.jpg.dec163a8515796a64aa14f07e645dad2.jpg

Was it normal practice to leave the washing strung out whilst apparently about to tip caol in beneath it? :huh:

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Unfortunately my files seem to have gone walkabout and I can't remember which colliery the coal came from. 

 

01j.rev_edited-1.jpg.dec163a8515796a64aa14f07e645dad2.jpg5aa662a175890_100_3938(2i).jpg.fccec202cc12a27421d7b0b2654fcdd2.jpg

Rawdon acted as a commercial centre for several local pits: I remember that when my parents ordered coal, they always phoned Rawdon, but Dad said that the coal which we received hadn't always been mined there. I am not sure how he knew this.

We lived within five miles of Gopsall Wharf, at Packington, and I never knew about this traffic or indeed about the canal itself. I still regret that, as I was already a transport enthusiast and would have loved to see working narrowboats.

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