Anti-social behaviour in Market Drayton

Prohibitions of anti-social behaviour in Market Drayton - and I agree with them all!

A Major Technical Breakthrough

I would be the first to admit that when it comes to machinery of any sort my ability to deal with problems - or even routine maintenance - is limited. In fact, one of Hilary's uncles, who has some boating experience, when he heard I had bought a narrowboat said he thought I was very brave - as I was "even less technically competent than he was"!
So when, earlier this year, the throttle lever on "Starcross" appeared to be working loose from its mounting, my first reaction was to ignore it and hope that it would get better and when this didn't work to ask a boatyard to fix it for me. The fact that this only cost me £70  made me realise that it couldn't have been a big job  - any boatyard job costing less than three figures is obviously minor. So, when the lever started to work itself loose once more a few months later on the way back from Braunston I realised that to ask them to mend it again would mark me out as a complete no-hoper, not to mention an easy target, so I determined to put it right myself.

Starcross' control panel and the errant throttle lever.

The first problem, as it had been back in March, was to work out what was holding it on in the first place. There are no obvious bolts or screws on the front and access to the rear of the panel is prevented by the side wall of the built-in cupboard behind it. I tried following the throttle cable up from the engine, this disappears into the bottom of the panel but the lever was too far up to reach. Doing so did, however, confirm that there was a narrow space between the panel and the cupboard, which housed the rest of the assembly. Eventually I realised that removing the instrument panel above the lever would provide the necessary access - but here I admit I hesitated. Long and bitter experience has shown me that it is much easier to take things apart than to put them together again, when I am usually faced with "a bit missing" or, more perplexingly, "a bit left over"! I had visions of the whole panel coming apart as it was removed and of being showered by assorted bits and pieces that it would be impossible to re-assemble in the correct pattern. Despite a strong feeling that it would all end in tears I steeled myself to remove the panel. It came away cleanly and only one of the connecting cables came loose - and that therefore was easy to put back on. With the panel out of the way I could see the two bolts that were supposed to hold the different parts of the assembly together. Although there were two pretty obvious "bolt-holes" in the rear part, the bolts that led from the front bit (sorry about all these technical terms) didn't line up with them and so the lever was just fixed to the rear of the front panel by a couple of nuts, which had come undone. It was a simple matter to tighten them up with a spanner and, hey, presto, £70 plus a reputation saved!


My technical inability, however, reasserted itself during the ensuing trip up to Market Drayton when I not only managed to let a dribbling tap drain the water tank but when re-filling  at Market Drayton I left my BW key at the water point! 

Droitwich - First of Many?

After the Barge Canal re-opens "later this year", and particularly when the Droitwich Junction Canal follows in 2011, I'm sure many of the continuously-cruising - and other - boaters who post their experiences online will be visiting the town and writing about what they see.
What they will find is a small, Worcestershire town with a big history. Nowadays mainly a dormitory town for Worcester and Birmingham commuters, Droitwich's original prosperity came from salt. Salt had been produced here in Roman times and by the time of the Normans the town was the largest producer of salt in the country.
After a long decline, salt working in the town finished in 1922, when the remaining producers combined to open a large-scale saltworks at nearby Stoke Prior at a point now known as "Stoke Works" on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. The demise of the salt trade led to the closure of the Droitwich canals, which remained derelict until the Droitwich Canals Trust began its restoration campaign in 1974.


Most visitors begin their tour of the town with a visit to the High Street. To be frank, as a shopping centre it's seen better days, being composed now mainly of charity shops, beauty parlours and fast-food takeaways - and of course, like most town centre streets that haven't been pedestrianised, it also functions as a car park. Serious shopping takes place in a nearby 1970's arcade, but the high street retains a certain charm and is sure to feature on a number of boaters' blogs in the future.

High Street, Droitwich

Centuries of salt extraction have taken their toll on the land on which the town is built and have resulted in the higgledy-piggeldy nature of some of the shops seen above, whilst in some parts of the town there isn't a straight line in sight.

Droitwich's other claim to fame is its radio transmitters. Not as well known to boaters (yet) as those at Hillmorton, they have been broadcasting BBC radio since 1934. Readers of a certain age may recall "Droitwich" on the dials of their old steam radio sets  -alongside "Athlone" "Hilversum" and "Vienna"!

Droitwich - You read it here first! (with apologies to anyone who's already written about it)

Droitwich Preview

The Droitwich Canals are due to re-open. The Barge Canal, from the River Severn to the town, "later this year" and the Junction Canal, which will link with the Worcester & Birmingham, following probably in 2011 after a few last-minute funding problems have been overcome. The latest news is here. The Droitwich Canals Trust has been working towards this end since 1973 and must be very pleased and proud that the re-opening is at last in sight.
On a journey home from Birmingham, I got off the train at Droitwich to see things for myself.

The restored canals will pass through the town at Vines Park, a large and attractive public open space just off the town centre.

Transit of the park will be a slow process, with no fewer than four pedestrian swing-bridges to negotiate. The particular needs of single-handed boaters appear to have been overlooked, with bridge mooring-bollards provided on the opposite side of the cut to the bridge mechanism. Notice too how the mooring is already popular with fishermen!

Another of the swing bridges

Moorings for visiting boats are being installed in the park and will be handy for the town centre and railway station. Hopefully a way will be found to link them to the bank before re-opening!

The Barge Canal will end at the last of the broad locks where boats will lock down into the River Salwarpe for a short way before joining the Junction Canal which, like the Worcester & Birmingham it leads too, has narrow locks. Note yet another swing bridge, this one across the lock chamber!

Some boats have already returned to the canal, but hopefully there will be many more in the weeks to come, some perhaps providing additional custom for the Railway Inn, which overlooks this scene from the left.

The Barge Canal passes under the bridge in the foreground (the railway is on the embankment behind the pub) but I'm afraid the Railway Inn will have to smarten itself up a bit if it wants to attract much custom from boaters - and it will have to improve its beer quality if it wants any more of mine! Fortunately, there are much better pubs in the town and I hope that next time I call in for a pint I'll have "Starcross" tied-up just down the road!

A Very Important Bridge

Bridge 88 on the Oxford Canal near Braunston is Very Important to British Waterways. So Important that I thought I ought to share it with you!

Birmingham to Brewood, via the "Scenic Route"

Faced with the need to traverse the BCN from Birmingham to Wolverhampton I can rarely bring myself just to use the obvious route. At the very least I'll go "Old Main Line" rather than New and, if I've got the time, I'll incorporate as many diversions and deviations as I can fit in - what we old busmen like to euphemistically call the "scenic route". For this trip the diversion of choice was to be Spon Lane Locks.
It has to be said that there is no obvious reason for any boat to use Spon Lane Locks these days and they must surely be some of the least used, as well as some of the oldest, locks on the system. They link the New Main Line at Bromford Junction with the Old Main Line half-a-mile away at Spon Lane Junction. A boat ascending the locks from the Wolverhampton or Walsall directions would have the option of continuing on the Old Main Line for hardly a mile before going down to the new line again at Smethwick Locks or turning almost 180 degrees at Spon Lane Jc to head back in the direction whence it came. I suppose a boat from Walsall to the top of The Crow (Oldbury Locks) might come this way but even such an unlikely movement would have an alternative route via the Gower Branch and the Brades Locks. A map might make this clearer. . .

GEO Projects map of the BCN showing Spon Lane Locks just left of centre.

. . .but then again, it may not!

Our route was out along the New Main Line to Bromford Junction, where we doubled back on ourselves round an almost 180 degree turn to the bottom of the Spon Lane flight.

Bromford Junction. Spon Lane Bottom Lock on the left, New Main Line on the right. Although bound for Wolverhampton, Starcross is at this point facing 

towards Birmingham, having come under the bridge on the right of the picture.

No sooner had I made the turn than we were brought to a full stop with a fouled propeller. I must admit that, even armed with the rubber gloves I keep especially for the BCN, I hesitated before plunging my arm down the weedhatch, such was the colour and smell of the black gunk where the water should have been. As often in Birmingham it was a piece of discarded clothing on the blades - in this case the remains of a pair of overalls. Perhaps its because there are so many miles of canal in Birmingham that the locals find it easier to dispose of unwanted clothing in this way rather than take it to he charity shop like everyone else.

The locks themselves were surprisingly well maintained and we had no further difficulty in reaching Spon Lane Junction, located underneath the elevated section of the M5 motorway, where another 180 degree turn brought us onto the Old Main Line and had us pointing in the right direction again.

Spon Lane Junction, where Starcross would turn to the right, 

behind the pillar in the foreground, onto the Old Main Line

My log shows that we left Birmingham at 08.55 and arrived at Wolverhampton Top Lock five-and-a-half hours later, so our little escapade had added an hour to the normal transit time. A boat was just leaving the top lock, heading downhill, so we could expect all 21 locks to be against us which, in the absence of any uphill traffic, proved to be the case. I think, therefore, that our time of 2h 37m was very creditable, being an average of 7.5 minutes a lock, not forgetting the two miles distance also covered. The folding bike really came into its own here as it allowed the lock worker to go on ahead to set the next lock and then return to close up after the boat left, before charging back down to arrive at the lower lock just as the boat reached it and in time to draw a bottom paddle.

We were at Autherley Junction at 17.05, but with no reason to stop here carried on to Brewood for the night, finding a space just past the official visitor moorings, which were full.
In the three days since leaving Stockton Top Lock we had covered 58 miles and no fewer than 87 locks so we felt we deserved a few pints in the hostelries of Brewood. We ended up in the "Swan" which, as well as good beer, has the advantage of having the village's main bus stop right outside, where we could keep an eye on the Arriva buses en-route from Wolverhampton to Stafford as well as the late evening "Midland" service to Ivetsey Bank. 
Paradise indeed - made even sweeter by another failure to close the bar at 11pm!

Back on old ground

We began our day with a couple of minor disasters, both more embarrassing than anything else. Shortly after setting off I decided to mop down the cabin roof. I dipped the mop into the cut as we sped along and the new mop head promptly fell off the handle and sank without trace! Then, just as we were approaching our friends from yesterday on "Wild Cherry" a rare lapse of concentration on Duncan's part had us stemmed up on the inside of a bend. I was busy using the spare mop on the still-dirty roof at the time and at least "Wild Cherry's" steerer had the grace to comment on my balancing ability as we ran aground rather than anything else.
For the first eighteen months I kept Starcross moored at Lowsonford, just down the Southern Stratford from Kingswood Junction, so the Lapworth flight and the northern Stratford thence to Kings Norton were familiar ground. Although both fans of the BCN, Duncan and I had decided to go via the Northern Stratford rather than the Grand Union as we anticipated another long day (it was actually 11 hours) and wanted to get the lock work done at the start rather than the end.

Lock 8, Lapworth flight

The northern end of the Lapworth flight is a joy to work (unlike the locks south of Kingswood) and I particularly like lock 8 with its old lock-keeper's cottage overlooking the rise, although judging by the car parked outside the lock-keeper doesn't live there any more!

In previous trips along this canal I've never encountered any trouble, but today, just before bridge 9 at Shirley we were the victim of some stone throwing by a group of young lads on the towpath who transferred their attention from attempting to hit floating bottles in the cut to Starcross as we passed. No real harm was done however and we were soon out of sight and therefore out of mind as far as they were concerned.

Kings Norton Junction

We reached Kings Norton Junction by late afternoon and made the awkward right turn (it's much sharper than it looks) on to the Worcester & Birmingham Canal. Shortly afterwards we were at Selly Oak, where extensive engineering work is underway in connection with a commercial development that will require a new swing bridge over the cut and, as a by-product, will see the first few metres of the Lappal Tunnel line of the Dudley Canal re-opened and some moorings provided.

Negotiating the "roadworks" at Selly Oak

The canal here parallels the main line into New Street Station and we were entertained by a constant stream of London Midland electric commuter trains, London Midland diesel units (some heading for Hereford) and Cross-Country "Voyagers" almost all the way in to town. We reached central Birmingham by 19.00 and tied up on the New Main Line, co-incidentally next to a boat with an almost identical livery to Starcross!

Snap!

Then we went to the pub. Or rather, several pubs, although we did take pay a professional visit to see the new Digbeth Coach Station (we are both ex-busmen) on the way! It was meant to be a "quiet night" but as Duncan and I were both brought up in the restrictive years of eleven o' clock closing (or even half-past-ten in places like Birmingham) when the Old Fox in Hurst Street was still serving at 11.30 we just had to have another (and could have had more) so it wasn't such an early night after all!

Crew Change at Leamington Spa

Despite their late arrival the Willow Wrens were away by 07.00 and well clear by the time we got to Stockton Top Lock an hour later. The eight locks between here and the "Blue Lias" took us 93 minutes, about 11.5 mins per lock, which wasn't bad for broad locks, all against us and with a two-handed crew. We did, however, manage to upset another boater on the way. My crew member, Hugh, has poor vision - in fact his eyesight is bad enough to qualify him for a bus pass on disability grounds - so its not surprising that in going ahead to set a lock he failed to notice two uphill boats in the next lock down. Their presence became apparent as we descended and they had to wait for us. As we passed in the pound I attempted to apologise and explain to the steerer of the first boat, but not only was he not interested he also berated me for not opening both bottom gates of the lock we'd just left. I thought this was a bit much as he had two crew members standing idly by at the top of the lock waiting for him. The second steerer was a bit more receptive and told me not to worry: "He's always grumpy in the mornings!"

Radford Bottom Lock. The very first lock I ever passed through on Starcross!

The section between the "Blue Lias" pub and Radford Bottom lock was the very first stretch of canal I ever navigated on Starcross. This was in 2003, when the then owners, Mark and Mandy who lived aboard, invited Hil and I for a day out on the cut. I'd always had ideas about getting a narrowboat and that day convinced me that one day I would. So I told Mark that if Starcross was ever for sale I wanted "first refusal". Little did I know that eighteen months later Mark and Mandy would be in Australia and I'd be a proud boat owner!

Hugh was to accompany me as far as Leamington, from where he would catch a series of trains back to Knaresborough and where Duncan, who was coming from Mossley, near Manchester also by train would join me. This involved Hugh, Duncan and Starcross being in Leamington simultaneously at 13.37hrs - a target made even more ambitious by it being Sunday a day legendary for delays and diversions on the railway. In the event, Duncan made an "impossible" connection somewhere en-route and, having met up with another occasional Starcross crew member, Ken, walked down the cut to meet us at Radford Road Bridge. I was, however, pleased to see that Starcross arrived at Leamington almost exactly on time. After a brief halt to replenish food supplies in the Co-op just down from bridge 40 Duncan, Ken and I set off through Warwick and up the Cape Locks, where we passed the Willow Wrens taking an extended lunch break to listen to the England - Germany match.

Just above the Cape (c) D Roberts

Ken had to leave us at the bottom of Hatton so we were very glad to see "Wild Cherry" with a husband-and-wife crew waiting for us in the bottom lock. They turned out to be one of those crews that sometimes you just "gel" with and can work through a flight efficiently and predictably without any discussion on who-does-what. Duncan and I swapped steering for lock-work half way up, but Mrs Wild Cherry "couldn't steer" so locked through all 21 locks herself, a task that took us three hours or 8.5 minutes a lock (including two miles distance). Wild Cherry has heading for Rowington for the night (the husband had been put on cooking duty) but we stopped above the top lock, arriving about 19.00.

Hatton visitor moorings

We were just about to set off to the pub about 21.00 when two hire boats came past. "Can you get two boats in that lock, mate?" said the steerer of the second. "Yes, said I, "but you do know there are 21 of them, don't you?"  From the look on his face I could see that this came as news - but in the morning we saw them tied up, facing north again, having winded in the top pound.

The Willow Wrens had followed us up from the Cape and were now tied up on the water point, three abreast. The kids were playing in the garden of the "Waterman" as we entered and I hope that the adults in the crew were inside, enjoying a no-doubt well-earned pint!

The Journey Home Begins

Braunston to Stockton Brook
After a somewhat leisurely journey to Braunston, spread over six days I had to get Starcross back to Norbury in just three. Of course, having come out via the relatively flat and easy route via Great Haywood, Fradley, Fazeley and Hawkesbury Jc I had to go back via the much more heavily-locked route down the Avon valley, back up again at Hatton, up to Birmingham and back down from Wolverhampton before regaining the lock-free section of the Shroppie to Norbury. Fortunately, for this journey I had a crew!
Hugh and I gained a little advantage by leaving Bruanston after the day's events on Saturday and made it as far as Stockton Brook before stopping for the night. Although it was late when we stopped we weren't the last boat on the move as three Willow Wren hire boats arrived about 21.30 each carrying part of a youth group and having come from the company's Rugby base that day.
On a winter trip in the 1970s an emergency stoppage on the Stockton flight meant we had to spend an hour or two in the Boat Inn at the top of the locks, where I drank probably the best pint of beer (Draught Bass) I've ever had. So good, in fact, that the work was completed and the canal re-opened long before we left the pub.
Well, the Boat Inn no longer sells Bass and the pub has, of course, changed out of all recognition but it still sells a decent pint, although the pub trade is obviously suffering and on a Saturday night the place was almost deserted.

The Boat Inn, Stockton Brook

I Went to Braunston. . .

. . . and I saw:

Raymond

some coal boats

Skylark

Sarah, (?) and the Ducks

Dove

More lovely old working boats

Lots more lovely old working boats. . .

. . . and a stunt in a punt!