Witchy & Foxy Up North - part 1
Aug 19, 2017 11:47:18 GMT
phil70, canaldweller, and 3 more like this
Post by naughtyfox on Aug 19, 2017 11:47:18 GMT
On Christmas Day 2015 the heavens opened and it bucketed down in Hebden Bridge for over 24 hours. This rain led to the River Calder rising spectacularly and bursting through walls, tossing huge stone blocks hither and thither as if they were merely little plastic Lego blocks. Tremendous damage was incurred – canal boats flung into the woods or slammed up against locks, the towpaths ripped up exposing the telephone cables laid below them, Hebden Bridge’s electricity station being shorted (going up in a puff of smoke) leaving the town in darkness. When the waters subsided the centre of Hebden Bridge was a sea of mud and soggy wet spoiled possessions piled on the pavements in bin bags.
A landslip around Lock 15 caused the canal to be closed between Hebden Bridge and Todmorden, and because two bridges at Elland were damaged the canal was closed there, so we could not escape from our mooring in Sowerby Bridge until July last Summer.
We had the dry dock in Furness Vale booked for late July so had no time any more to go along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal as originally planned, but instead shimmied up and down the Huddersfield Narrow Canal (51 locks up from the Calder, 32 down) in three days, and then turned left to face the 16 locks at Marple.
After the dry dock, we went down the Macclesfield and up the Trent & Mersey for the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union to Nantwich.
Our idea for Winter was to be on the Llangollen Canal when the hordes had gone, and this proved to be the case, we had very pleasant October, Christmas and Feb/March sailings up and down the Llangollen. Documented here on Thunderboat, with photos (you'll have to search for the Oct / Christmas and Feb/Mar journals).
We decided to enjoy boating more for itself and to try and take things easier and not rush around, and to stay ’Up North’ and do the Leeds & Liverpool Canal this Summer. More Pennine magic. The south of England will still be there when we eventually get down to it, as our boating is a slow tour of the whole of the network.
We settled on this plan: that we would go as far as Selby, somewhat slightly risky on the Rivers Aire and Calder where they are wide and deep as we only have a little one-cylinder engine producing 10 horse power, and then all the way back to Castleford and west past Wakefield and Dewsbury to Brighouse and back to our old haunt of Sowerby Bridge. And this we achieved. We also made a sprint for Goole, before Selby.
This is our story as to how we saw the Leeds & Liverpool Canal from west to east.
We set off from Swanley Marina on June 6th, parking the boat in Nantwich for 6 days whilst we began our tour of England in a rental car from Crewe, which is just one railway station from Nantwich. I had those photo albums to take to my brother in London and some DVDs to take to Saltysplash (of this parish!) near Slough, and the plan was to leave the car close to Saltysplash’s boat and continue into London by train. The London bit didn’t happen (and we ended up driving to Hertford and Harlow and to Henham (Essex) that day) but we did call in to see Salty!
Friday 9th we ambled through sleepy southern Suffolk to Rendham and Sweffling. Saturday to Framlingham, Aldeburgh and Woodbridge. And on the Sunday a big jump to Cromer on Norfolk’s northern coast – but that’s for the next set of photos. I shall put up each set each Saturday afternoon. I’m not sure how many sets yet, as still in progress.
On clicking the link below and seeing all the photos appear at once, you should then click on the first photo to enlarge it, and then click the little i (information sign top right) for the text I have added to appear. Then you may either click the forwards arrow to continue to the next photo, or use your keyboard arrow buttons to sail back and forth.
goo.gl/photos/PJiXSD8aEtvDEPeC6
A landslip around Lock 15 caused the canal to be closed between Hebden Bridge and Todmorden, and because two bridges at Elland were damaged the canal was closed there, so we could not escape from our mooring in Sowerby Bridge until July last Summer.
We had the dry dock in Furness Vale booked for late July so had no time any more to go along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal as originally planned, but instead shimmied up and down the Huddersfield Narrow Canal (51 locks up from the Calder, 32 down) in three days, and then turned left to face the 16 locks at Marple.
After the dry dock, we went down the Macclesfield and up the Trent & Mersey for the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union to Nantwich.
Our idea for Winter was to be on the Llangollen Canal when the hordes had gone, and this proved to be the case, we had very pleasant October, Christmas and Feb/March sailings up and down the Llangollen. Documented here on Thunderboat, with photos (you'll have to search for the Oct / Christmas and Feb/Mar journals).
We decided to enjoy boating more for itself and to try and take things easier and not rush around, and to stay ’Up North’ and do the Leeds & Liverpool Canal this Summer. More Pennine magic. The south of England will still be there when we eventually get down to it, as our boating is a slow tour of the whole of the network.
We settled on this plan: that we would go as far as Selby, somewhat slightly risky on the Rivers Aire and Calder where they are wide and deep as we only have a little one-cylinder engine producing 10 horse power, and then all the way back to Castleford and west past Wakefield and Dewsbury to Brighouse and back to our old haunt of Sowerby Bridge. And this we achieved. We also made a sprint for Goole, before Selby.
This is our story as to how we saw the Leeds & Liverpool Canal from west to east.
We set off from Swanley Marina on June 6th, parking the boat in Nantwich for 6 days whilst we began our tour of England in a rental car from Crewe, which is just one railway station from Nantwich. I had those photo albums to take to my brother in London and some DVDs to take to Saltysplash (of this parish!) near Slough, and the plan was to leave the car close to Saltysplash’s boat and continue into London by train. The London bit didn’t happen (and we ended up driving to Hertford and Harlow and to Henham (Essex) that day) but we did call in to see Salty!
Friday 9th we ambled through sleepy southern Suffolk to Rendham and Sweffling. Saturday to Framlingham, Aldeburgh and Woodbridge. And on the Sunday a big jump to Cromer on Norfolk’s northern coast – but that’s for the next set of photos. I shall put up each set each Saturday afternoon. I’m not sure how many sets yet, as still in progress.
On clicking the link below and seeing all the photos appear at once, you should then click on the first photo to enlarge it, and then click the little i (information sign top right) for the text I have added to appear. Then you may either click the forwards arrow to continue to the next photo, or use your keyboard arrow buttons to sail back and forth.
goo.gl/photos/PJiXSD8aEtvDEPeC6
Stoodley Pike is a 1,300-foot (400 m) hill in the south Pennines, noted for the 121 feet (37 m) Stoodley Pike Monument at its summit, which dominates the moors of the upper Calder Valley in the civil parish of Todmorden near the villages of Mankinholes and Lumbutts, West Yorkshire, England. The monument was designed in 1854 by local architect James Green, and completed in 1856 at the end of the Crimean War.
