Mick was off on a train late morning, heading back to Hull. This time it was for his second Covid jab. He’d booked it through the NHS website at the Late Night Pharmacy which is just on the eastern side of the River Hull. Yesterday he’d had a phone call from his doctors surgery in Scarborough offering him one on Friday, which obviously he turned down.
Shhh baking
On arrival he had to wait outside until he was called in, after seeing several people he was given his jab and sent out the back door on his way, making room for the next person. A much smaller operation than we’d both been to at the Rugby Club in Scarborough.
Shh jam
Whilst he was off the boat it gave me the opportunity to do some secret wrapping and start to bake his birthday cake. Thanks to Christine (Mick’s sister) for sharing a rather tasty looking apricot tart the other day I’d decided to bake a Bakewell tart this year. The pastry base made by substituting gluten free flour and then the almond filling, ground almonds with lots of eggs, sugar and butter.
Shhhh Bakewell Tart
On his way back to the station he went in search of The Bay Horse on Wincolmlee. No longer a pub sadly, so he couldn’t stop for a pint, but at last he’d seen where Tom Geraghty his Grandfather lived in 1901 at the age of 10.
Once The Bay Horse
Not far away he stopped by The Charter House too. The Master of the Charter House was Mick’s Great Uncle, Arthur Kent Chignell, during WW2. So it wasn’t just a trip for a covid jab.
I finished off making the giant strawberry and took loads more photographs of what I hoped would be the final model, although after passing them onto the costume designer I now need to amend one colour choice as it would clash with her costumes. Yes it is panto, the brighter the better, but sometimes it’s better to be a touch more harmonious.
Strawberry
A little while before 7pm there was a knock on the boat roof. It was Joan’s husband delivering our pre-birthday dinner. Peking Duck with pancakes for Mick and lettuce for me with a green onion sauce that she’d made with gluten free soya sauce.
Lots of boxes
This was followed by crispy lamb ribs which came with roast potatoes and stir fried veg. All very very tasty and highly recommended. If we get the chance for some more food from her I’m hoping the sweet and sour seabass will be on the menu as that looks very interesting. Not your normal Chinese takeaway, but real Chinese home cooking.
Yesterday a new notice about Selby Swing Bridge was put out by C&RT.
Update on 18/05/2021:
We anticipate it will take around 2 weeks for our Contractors to carry out the temporary footbridge installation and the damaged bridge lift, though we are awaiting a precise date from our contractor for this work to commence. There will also be a short closure to reinstall the bridge in around 3 months time (date to be confirmed).
This is good news as it means the route to and from York will be open, just a shame it won’t be in time for us. David called ABP this morning to book all three boats to pen down at 14:30 on Friday. Goole Docks will need to be called on VHF Channel 14 at around 14:00 to request permission to proceed into the docks. He has suggested a channel for ship to ship comms and done loads of calculations as to speed and time of arrival at Selby. Then he has forwarded pages from the Ripon Motorboat club book. We have a copy of this which I bought for Mick years ago. It turns out that David produced the edition we have. So our flotilla will be in good hands. We just have to pray for good weather now.
0 locks, 0 miles, 2 trains, 2nd jab, 0 2nd job, 1 colour amendment, 1 bridge to be replaced, 1 yummy Chinese, channel 14, 6, 9, 74, 28 beacon, so many fingers crossed for good weather.
Here is playwright John Godber talking about the upcoming production of Moby Dick. I designed the premiere production of this show about twenty years ago for Hull Truck in their old home at Spring Street. John and Hull Truck are my Hull theatrical roots, I think he’s a bit excited.
New Years Eve and news from the marina, via Al and Lisa, was that water levels were good, maybe up a bit, but it was most definitely icy out there. It was good to hear that the bigger flow from the temporary fix at the breach site didn’t seem to be affecting the levels in Goole.
Mark Penn put up some frosty photos of the breach site. Water still coming through the temporary fix, but appearing to be flowing the right way. It’s a good job the Aire and Calder’s water is supplied from the river rather than a reservoir.
Mark also took his drone up to Pollington, taking photos of the north bank of the canal where we’d noticed the pilling relaxing into the canal. From his photos you can see there is another layer of pilling further back, more curved than that by the waters edge.
The post on facebook led to various comments regarding an old railway bridge across the canal at this point. This was a Bascule bridge, one of two high level moving bridges on the canal, the other was a swing bridge below Knostrop Lock. An act of parliament was drawn up saying that anything that crossed the Aire and Calder had to be either moveable or high enough for sea going ships to get under, intending the canal to be like the Manchester Ship Canal but this fell by the wayside. Thank you Alf Huckitt for this info.
The bridge
Then Phil Pritchard provided a photo of the bridge, built by John Butler Ltd of Stanningly, Leeds in 1884 to carry the Hull and Barnsley Railway over the canal. The mechanism to lift it was never fitted as it wasn’t required for the vessels that were using the canal. It was demolished in 1974.
The line just to the East of Pollington in 1947
Mick looked for evidence on maps of the route the railway had taken. Quite often tell tail signs of embankments and lines of trees give away an old route.
There’s the line of trees crossing the canal
Looking at old maps and then comparing them to Google satellite view we could trace out the route, joining the lines of trees and pale lines in fields.
Route just traceable
My wiggly line shows the route of the line through Gowdall to Drax.
An interesting bit of detective work to keep us busy.
Happy New Year
0 locks, 0 miles, 1 more day away from the boat, 1 new year, 3 of us in the house.
Writing a blog it’s interesting to see which posts seem to generate the most interest. WordPress and if I remember rightly Blogger give you information daily on views to your blog. How many views today, how many visitors, where people have come from and what if any links they have clicked on.
Thwaite Mill
Certain posts appear time and time again. Here on Oleanna the most popular post is about Thwaite Mills. This post usually gets at least one viewing a day and has stacked up 1442 viewings since I wrote it in March last year and in April this year it was viewed 151 times. This post was one of the first after we moved the blog to WordPress.
Pots of Putty
Thwaite Mills is an interesting place and very much worth a visit either by car or boat, although there is limited mooring. Here’s a link if you are interested. I suspect many views come from Google searches and not just to catch up on what we’ve been up to.
Magic
Lilllian’s blog has always been popular for the post regarding the Magic Roundabout in Hemel Hempstead, 170 views through the years since 2015. A small number of views in comparison. I think the photo of the road sign has been clicked on more times.
Lillian’s blog has had no posts posted since we handed her over to her new owners back at the end of June 2017. She normally has a trickle of views each week and sits low on the Waterways Ranking Site. So when I got a message from WordPress last week saying that her viewings were Booming! I was interested to see why.
But….what….how?!
Blimey they were Booming! On the 16th November there were 605 views by 476 visitors. What the!?! With 390 referrals from Google in a single day. Two posts were being viewed in particular, both regarding Emily Blagg.
Demolished house to make room for The Palace Theatre
Emily Blagg lived in Newark from 1887, she ran her own businesses, buying into a brick company and becoming a property developer, building houses for the local work force. She also built the local Kinema which was followed by The Palace Theatre. She then moved into producing metal pipework.
Built in 1920
Whilst we were in Newark during winter 2015/16, I did a bit of research into her and we visited several of the houses she’d built. The post Emily Blagg and The Polish has always been a popular post, but having 581 views in November out of the total of 629?!
I’ve had a look around Google to see if this November marks any anniversary for Emily Blagg but can’t find anything obvious. Maybe the interest was more to do with the Polish War graves, but pictures of Emily’s houses had been clicked on. Maybe there is a school or college doing research on Emily? Or maybe my Emily Blagg got confused with a more modern day lady who had hit the lime light for some other reason? Who knows? If you do please let me know.
Newarks War graves
All this interest in our old blog meant that Lillian gradually over the last week rose up the Waterway Ranking Site. I think she reached position 11 overall, beating this blog and many others. The 581 views are not reflected on the site as views are recorded in a different way than those on WordPress. Now that a week has passed since the mass interest Lillian’s blog will drop back down and go back to lurking towards the bottom of the ranks again. She’s already reached no 27.
Newark Cemetry
Apologies for this post, but as you know I do like numbers.
A day of not venturing far, well Tilly might have but who knows where she ends up!
A couple of days ago a C&RT stoppage had come through saying that Kilnhurst Flood Lock was out of order due to a hydraulic pipe. This almost certainly meant that Exol Pride was stuck on the far side of the lock, so yesterday when we moved we knew we’d not be bumping into a big blue boat.
Here she comes
This morning a bit before 10am another notice came through saying the lock was now operational again. Exol Pride would be on it’s way. For a narrowboat it would take 3.5 hours to do the journey, Exol most probably a bit less. So it wasn’t a surprise when about an hour later Oleanna started to move, stretching her ropes to their full extent. Around 15 minutes later we could hear the engine and sure enough the big blue bow came round the bend behind us.
Before the lock is Sprotbrough Road Bridge and a pipe bridge, for these the wheelhouse of Exol Pride is too high, so as they approached the wheelhouse sank into the depths of the boat, leaving just enough head height for the helm to be able to stay standing up.
A trip up here wouldn’t be complete without seeing Dolly Earle
About an hour later a dutch barge came past, followed by another. This one we’d been expecting to see at some point. We’ve spotted Dolly Earle every time we’ve been up this way, quite often mooring up beside them as they dry their washing, they always seem to have washing on the go.
Getting ready
Just after lunch I prepared a batch of cheese scones, Mick put chairs and our plank table up on the bank ready for our visitor.
Lovely to see Fran
Fran, Mick’s niece who lives in Sheffield came for a visit. She is an NHS physiotherapist who works with children, this morning she’d been into two schools seeing to peoples needs. We all kept our distance sat on the bank, enjoying cuppas and freshly made scones as we caught up on news of her new washing machine and family and much more.
With little sun it was a touch chilly sat outside, we’ll be getting our padded down coats out soon to have meetings like this. It was lovely to see Fran, the first of our family in the flesh this year.
Today
Once we’d tidied everything away we decided to have a short walk along the river bank, heading down stream. It takes a little while to cross the bridge as there is only one pavement and that is on the other side of the road from both the moorings and the direction we were wanting to go once we’d crossed.
On street view September 2016
A coffee van had been serving cyclists and walkers all day from the little car park opposite our mooring, but had now packed up for the day. I stopped to take a photo of Oleanna across the way. Four years ago we’d been moored in exactly the same spot when the Google car came past, both of us were stood on the bank at the time. Street view has been updated since.
The old pumping house for the Hall
We turned and walked under the bridge we’d just crossed, walked up to the lock. Alongside the huge chamber is a kind of layby where a couple of boats are, what was this used for? Was it part of the feed to the water wheel that used to power Sprotbrough Hall pumping water up to the village?
We soon came across what had been the pumping house, some wheels and cogs still visible. A sign explaining about it is really quite annoying. Full of information but highly polished silver it is next to impossible to read, taking a photo for later proved impossible and I was so occupied in just trying to read it very little of the information stuck. It did how ever make for a slightly arty photo!
Ballustrade above
One thing I do remember is that the ruin is a grade 2 listed building and the mechanism was put into storage in Barnsley for safe keeping, which now has been lost!
A rather grand affair
Sprotbrough Hall was built for the Copley family in 1670 and remained in the family by hook or by cousins for many a generation. It was a Jacobean house with some influence from Versaille. The Hall and estate were sold off in 161 lots in 1925, FS Gowland from Ripon bought the hall with 115 acres of land for £9100.
1892, the hall and gardens
By 1926 the hall was being demolished, the rubble used to fill the cellar and excess stone was used as foundations for houses in Brompton Road. Much of the village is now built on the Halls estate. Little remains of the original house, the stable yard remains now apartments and looking up from the river bank we could see the ballustraded viewing area which was directly infront of the hall. A very interesting article with photos can be found here.
1966 there is now another estate above Lover’s Leap
We continued our walk to the A1 bridge, traffic hurtling across above us at speed, I wonder what it was like back in April stood on the river bank when there was so much less traffic.
A footpath took us up into the village where we weaved our way around the roads where once the hall had stood. At the methodist church the railings were festooned with blue ribbons, each one marking a life lost in a Doncaster hospital from Covid-19.
I so hope no more will be added
0 locks, 0 miles, 1 niece, 2 lovely hours, 12 scones, 3 consumed, 9 left oh dear! 1 walk, 1 hour setting up, 8 hours shore leave, 1 problem solved, 1 big quiche, 3 big boats, 9.
This house looks like it’s straight out of a period drama
Sykehouse Junction to Bramwith Junction, Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation
Well overnight those little blood sucking b**tards made a feast of me, by the end of today I could count ten bites. The only one that wasn’t complaining was the one I saw happen so I applied cream to the area straight away which most probably helped greatly. I don’t think I’ve been eaten so much since I was a child!
A good vantage point
It was raining when we woke so we decided to let Tilly judge when we should move on today. The back doors opened for her to head off and explore. But she really couldn’t be bothered with getting soggy so early in the day, so she went straight back to bed.
River Went Aqueduct
The weather improved and by 11 we were rolling back the covers and getting ready to push off to cruise from one end of the New Junction Canal to the other. Opening in 1905 the canal was jointly funded by the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation and the Aire and Calder Navigation. It links the River Don Navigation, Stainforth and Keadby Canal to the Aire and Calder and was the last waterway to be built in England for commercial purposes. It stretches 5.5 miles and is dead straight, however this doesn’t mean it’s plane sailing as there are 6 bridges and 1 lock to operate. It looks like originally there were another two bridges now long since gone.
Commercial traffic still works these waters with Exol Pride running oil between Hull and Rotherham. Mick had noticed on vessel finder that the big blue boat had set off for Hull today, we assume they’ll return to Goole tomorrow and then head up the canal Wednesday.
Went End Footbridge
Once winded we crossed the Went Aqueduct passing under one of two footbridges on the canal that didn’t require any action from us. With nobody behind us today we’d not be leapfrogging our way along.
Going up
Soon at Sykehouse Road Lift Bridge I hopped off with the key of power. Waiting for a gap in traffic is all fine when you can see both ways, but from the control panel you can only see for about 20 foot either side. When crossing the road I’d noticed a car being overtaken and could still hear the engine running, however it wasn’t getting any closer. I’d expected it to have passed by now, so I had to walk back up onto the bridge and take a peek, there was the car, closer than before, still in the middle of the road with people stood round it chatting. It wouldn’t be coming anytime soon, so time to push the buttons. I held up 3 vehicles here.
One coming through
At Kirk Lane Road Swing Bridge we could see the barriers coming down, closing the bridge to road traffic, someone was coming the other way, we sped up hoping they’d see us. Once swung the bow of their boat came into view, the chap at the helm spotting us and relaid the information to the button presser. 0 vehicles were held up here.
Sykehouse Lock
The amber light was lit at Sykehouse Lock, meaning it was on self service. This lock is often manned and on the several occasions we’ve been through I’ve only had to operate it once.
This lock is operated with the key of power, as most locks round here, but it does have one difference it has three control panels and a swing bridge right over the middle of it.
Central panel
Your key goes in the central panel, which doesn’t have any buttons on it, but once turned your key is retained until all is closed again.
Swing Bridge open to the lock
A click can be heard from the road barriers for the swing bridge. These are manually pushed round until they lock in position closing the track that crosses the lock. You then lift the locking latch and swing the bridge out of the way until it locks into another latch. This completes a circuit which enables the lock now to be operated, the two panels, one either end illuminating.
The chamber was empty so I opened the gates and Mick brought Oleanna in, he hung back and passed a rope around a bollard whilst I closed the gates and then walked up to the other end to the panel there. The lock is 215ft long, Oleanna seemed a very long way away.
Button pressed and held for 2 seconds and the sluices started to open, they do this in stages until fully opened. Once full the Water Level light illuminates and you can open the gates, letting your boat out.
Sluices closed, gates closed. Time to lift the latch on the swing bridge to be able to close it again. This releases the locked barriers. Once the bridge is back in it’s latch and the barriers are opened the central panel gives a little click meaning your key can be retrieved again.
0 vehicles were held up here, 2 cyclists stopped for a banana break before retracing their route southwards.
Once a swing bridge
The next bridge is around 1.75 miles away, but along this stretch there used to be two more bridges, one obviously was a swing bridge, the other has left little if any evidence of it’s existence.
Lift
Kirkhouse Green Lift Bridge, I managed to get 6 vehicles here.
Another coming through
Top Lane Lift Bridge, the barriers came down as we got close, another boat coming through. We were waved on and passed under thanking the lady at the panel and only holding up 1 .
Swinging the last bridge
At Low Lane Swing Bridge you need to use your ears as the road bends round either side out of view. I couldn’t hear anyone approaching so pressed the button to open. Here we held up 2 vans.
Don Doors
Ahead were the Don Doors. These are two guillotine gates that are lowered at either end of the Don Aqueduct when the river below goes into flood. The aqueduct in normal times is full to the brim, any excess water spills over the sides down into the Don.
Aqueduct brimming
The last bridge is a footbridge over the canal just after the Don Doors, no key of power required here.
Footbridge and Mick
By now the sky was getting very dark again and the wind had picked up. After a couple of loads of washing yesterday we were wanting a top up, so we turned left towards Bramwith Lock where there is a water point just above it.
Approaching the junction
The tank filled as the heavens opened. A narrowboat came up the lock with the assistance of a C&RT Lockie. This chap is in charge of volunteers in the area. Last year they had 8, this year there are now 30 volunteer lock keepers and rangers, he’s kept very busy training them all.
Not wanting to descend the lock, we also didn’t want to get pinned against it’s top gates by the wind, so Mick decided to reverse back up to the junction before winding. We then pulled in to the towpath, tied up and let Tilly out. Well she wasn’t too pleased that it was raining and hung back for a while. Then she was off to stare into the friendly cover.
1 lock, 5.46 miles plus a little bit, 2 winds, 1 left, 3 lift bridges, 3 swing bridges, 2 footbridges, 12 held up, 2 worked for us, 0 leapfrogging/hopscotching, 4 hours, 1 steady internet connection, 1 hour homework, 1 hour setting up, 1 blustery wet day, 1 full tank, 1 load washing, 2 much drying inside, 1st performance at VET after lockdown, 10 bites itching, 24 hourly pill, 1 tube of anthisan!
Once breakfast was over it was time to make a move upstream. We have done the route into York on Lillian twice, however I know the river better from the banks on this side of the city. This is where I grew up, over looking the river which I was taught to respect from a very early age. Things change, but along this stretch only the trees seem to grow bigger and higher than in my childhood. The advantage of living beside a flood plain is no new chimneyless houses have popped up.
Lines of cruisers
From Naburn the riverside moorings are full of white shiny cruisers all their pointy noses facing upsteam. Acaster Malbis has houses to match with big gardens stretching down to the river.
York Marina busy
There were tents and gazebos at York Marina and they seemed to be doing a roaring trade, most probably in teas and coffees overlooking the river.
The wire sculpture of a fisherman and his dog on Naburn Railway Bridge
We tried checking the price for diesel on their pump, but as it serves both petrol and diesel I couldn’t tell which cost £1.65 a litre! We’ll hang on till Boroughbridge.
The west bank of the river now becomes more interesting, lots of different sorts of boats, all the moorings individual clinging onto the high bank. In some places it’s like a shanty town, it must take years, decades to collect the stuff some have piled high. Others have new swiss style sheds that have sprung up during lockdown, their fresh yellow wood waiting for the winter to be toned down by nature.
Archbishops Palace. We used to walk down the east bank with the dogs and stand and look at the Palace. At 7 or 8 I never thought about who lived there, but today neither of us knew who the new Archbishop of York was, I had to look it up! We knew John Sentamu had retired after 15 years, now Stephen Cottrell is the 98th Archbishop, I believe he took on the position early in the summer. Four years ago scarecrows stood in the riverside garden, today it just looked neat.
Not the nicest bridge to cross the river
The A64 then crosses the river, I remember the days before this was built and then the gradual increase in traffic across it which could be heard from our house, it also supposedly blocked out the tiny view of the palace from my parents bedroom. A brave runner ran against the traffic high above us, then she popped up again on the east bank keeping pace with us as we headed upstream.
Fulford Hall
Fulford Hall, now apartments sits on the bend where the trip boats used to wind. Then I could just make out Landing Lane (Lovers Lane when I was a kid) between the trees. My Dad in his latter years felt he’d achieved a good walk if he reached the benches here for a rest, I think Bramble his dog was glad of the rest too, accompanied by a restorative square of liver cake Dad made especially for her. He was also very popular with all the other local woofers.
Wonder if they were looking for the penny Harald dropped in 1066
Today two chaps were magnet fishing off the little beach here. This is where the Battle of Fulford took place in 1066. King Harald III of Norway and Tostig Godwinson, his English ally, fought and defeated the Northern Earls Edwin and Morcar in September that year. It is estimated that 1650 died in the battle, so there may be interesting things to find on the river bed. Recently Fulford Parish Council had a crowdfunding attempt to buy some of the land for the community. But sadly even though they reached their target their funds were out bid at auction. I hope the new owner realises what they have.
There it is
Just a short distance on it was time to very gently coast upstream. We kept our eyes peeled for a house set back, peeking above the friendly cover on the banks. To either side of my family home are big houses, my Dad’s house much smaller, but somehow, my Dad’s is the only one you can get a clear view of from the river. The window visible is my parents bedroom, the room where I was born.
Fenwicks Lane in 2013
In the last year or so the current owner has added a bedroom to the back and altered the conservatory, as part of the building works new larch cladding has replaced the old original wood which had darkened with age. The house my Dad designed and built is still there.
Millennium Bridge
Onwards to the Millenium Bridge a possible mooring that needed checking out. We’ll need to be a touch creative with our mooring as other than a chain there is nothing to tie to. We checked the depth and that was good too, the fact that we’d be moored close to a chilled medication boat has nothing what-so-ever to do with it!
Now we were joined on the river by trip boats and day hires doing circles. We managed to avoid them.
The blue of Blue Bridge just visible
The Blue Bridge over the end of the River Foss has recently been away for restoration and it looks like a temporary bridge had been installed. The Foss Barrier behind is sadly closed due to work being carried out on it, we’d been toying with a little trip up as far as you can get, but that will have to wait for another time.
A classy car
We spotted a weather vein on top of my best friend Emma’s house, sure this wasn’t there when the Snowdons were residence.
If anyone fancies buying us a big present one day
A rather lovely looking Dutch Barge sits on the Clementhorpe bank. If we were ever to win the Lottery we would love to own one of these for the large waterways. Their lines are just so lovely, of course we would keep Oleanna meaning we could still climb over the Pennines.
Skeldergate Bridge, which recently we found out that the northern most arch used to have a lifting section to it to allow taller boats access to the busy quaysides upstream, this last opened in 1975. Originally a toll bridge which replaced a busy ferry it opened in 1881 and was designed by Thomas Page, it was the third modern bridge in the city. The bridge became toll free in 1914, the citizens of York were so happy they held a regatta to celebrate.
Kings Staith was busy as always, well apart from when it’s flooded! All the trip boats and hire boats were out and plenty of people were sat out enjoying the sunshine. Here is another possible mooring, but with ladders to climb to get on and off Oleanna we are unlikely to use it.
Ouse Bridge, image from the internet
Under Ouse Bridge the oldest of the bridges in York. This is where the first bridge across the Ouse stood in the ninth century. Several versions have followed including one that in 1367 had the first public toilets in the country installed. The current Ouse Bridge was built in 1821.
York Press used to be printed here
The back of Coney Street, the main shopping street from my youth follows along. The old printworks for the York Press and the Mansion House all back onto the river before Lendal Bridge, another crossing designed by Thomas Page.
This was the second bridge to cross the river, its original foundation stone was laid in 1860, during it’s construction disaster struck and it collapsed killing five men. The bridge was rebuilt to Thomas Page’s design and opened in 1863. The new bridge put the Lendal ferryman out of business, he was paid compensation of £15 and a horse and cart.
How did that picture get in there?!
The moorings along the bottom of Museum Gardens is the most popular place to tie up in York, nothing to do with the other chilled medication boat being moored here. Today we’d have managed to squeeze in, but here was not our chosen mooring for the day, we still had quite a few miles to go.
Scarborough Railway Bridge
A trip boat had pulled out ahead of us and now took it’s time to give it’s commentary on the Scarborough Railway Bridge, with it’s new footbridge that leads into the station platforms. Past the bridge the trip boat sped up and we followed until it reached Clifton Bridge where it winded, giving it’s horn signal mid manoeuvre!
Winding at Clifton Bridge
The river is now surrounded by willow trees, many having shed large branches into the water, luckily most still attached to the bank so not a hazard to us today. Under Skelton Railway Bridge which takes the East Coast Main Line up towards Newcastle and Edinburgh, no trains obliged for a photo.
Kingfishers were about again today, darting across the rivers surface keeping us amused whilst nothing much else could be seen. Then a few trees other than willows showed on the banks of the river, a house and then a tight turn to the right where the River Nidd joins the Ouse and sandy banks encourage dogs and children to swim. Here is the boundary to Beningborough Park in which sits Beningborough Hall a National Trust property we visited in 2014 .
We were surprised to see the pontoon for The Dawnay Arms empty on a Friday afternoon, but then again they are closed during the afternoon. Here’s hoping it is empty on our return as we’ll be stopping to treat ourselves to a meal here.
Fishing waist deep
Below Linton Lock the river widens out and is very shallow. Buoys mark the shallow water and fishermen were taking advantage to wade their way out to tempt the fish to their lines. I hopped off at the pontoon and walked up to set the lock.
Wheels, paddles raised
The mechanism for the bottom gate paddles is an unusual one. Horizontal wheels on the gates need to be turned to raise the paddle below the water. This takes quite some time to do, then the lock takes quite a while to empty. Once I was certain it had levelled out it was time to open the gate. This is windlass operated so if your arms weren’t tired enough from turning the wheels they would be by the time you’d got the gate shifted. I’ve made a mental note to try the other gate when we come back as it may not rest on the ground quite as much, hopefully it will be easier.
Oleanna all the way over there
Then there is everything to close up before you start filling the lock, those wheels to spin closed and the gate to wind shut. I looked longingly at the large cool glasses of beer sat in front of people by the lock, they looked so good!
The position of the ground paddles is quite a distance away from the lock, this makes it impossible to see what is happening as you raise the paddle. With no sight of Mick or Oleanna I wound the paddle several times then checked over the gate, a bit more, check again, a bit more and so on. I think it increased my steps for the day. Slowly Oleanna rose, still quite a distance down in the lock when the levels equalised.
Rising in Linton Lock
We’d been hoping for a space on the visitor pontoon here. Two cruisers seemed to be taking up most of the space, but was there more room further on. Mick headed off whilst I closed up the lock. Just after the cruisers was a space big enough for us, even if the pontoon ran out and we’d be overhanging the slipway, it would do for us tonight.
1 lock, 15.71 miles, 1 palace, 9 bridges, 1 birth place, 1 Daddy Fatso house still there, 1 day reminiscing, 2 moorings checked out, 2 chilled medication boats, 1 sunny day, 1 home city, 1 table booked, 2 wheels, 0 view, 1 boat squeezed in, 1 very late lunch, 0 shore leave, 5 Kingfishers, 300+ photos today.
