Saltford to Bradford on Avon

Narrowboat John Damsell is going to Rugby.  By car the journey would probably take between two and three hours. By boat, it is more like two to three weeks. The journey will take us along the length of the Kennet and Avon, up the Thames to Oxford then a right turn up the Oxford Canal.

Kelston Lock

The sailing club were out at Saltford, whizzing up and down in small dinghies. We waited for them to move down river then turned the boat round and headed upstream to Bath. There were two river locks to negotiate, Kelston and Weston Locks, before we turned off the river and onto the Kennet and Avon proper. The river locks are a hundred years older than the canal ones. The development of Bath in the early eighteenth century as a fashionable Spa town had involved transporting materials by packhorses and carts along untarred tracks.  Ralph Allen and other big names from Bath decided to invest in making the River Avon navigable and six locks were built on the river at a total cost of £12,000. The Avon opened as a navigation in 1727. Railways were built from the Bath quarries to the river and Shropshire coal was taken down the Severn and then brought up from Bristol. This caused a bit of trouble with the Somersetshire miners who were unhappy with the threat to local jobs and industry. In 1738 the lock at Saltford was almost destroyed by Persons Unknown.  The wreckers left "threatening papers" demanding a stop to sending any more coals by water.

Newbridge, River Avon near Bath

Bath Deep Lock

After passing the railway station at Bath we turned right off the River under an arched bridge and started up the Kennet and Avon, retracing the route we had taken with MANKINI MAN a couple of weeks previously, up the Widombe flight of locks. This time all was quiet and we navigated the horrifying Deep Lock uneventfully. The Kennet and Avon canal was completed in 1810, last year it celebrated its bi-centenary. We had been at Bedwyn in Wiltshire at the time, Timothy West and Prunella Scales, keen boaters on the K&A, had arrived to join the celebrations and unveil a commemorative plaque.

After the flight we went through the short tunnels of Sydney Gardens and under Cleveland House, the old headquarters of the K&A company. In the roof of the tunnel is  a small hole which apparently was used for delivering and picking up packages from the barges below. The two cast iron bridges, dating from 1800, have just been restored this year, and a very good job they have done of it too.

We meandered on through the Limpley Stoke valley and over Dundas aqueduct. The Somerset Coal Canal arm, a short length of the original coal canal, enters the K&A next to the aqueduct. The SCC was lost to the railway which was built along its route. If you've seen the excellent film The Titfield Thunderbolt (Ealing Studios) you'll recognise it, Monkton Combe just along the valley is Titfield. I went to a showing of the film in Monkton Combe village hall: several of the more senior members of the audience had been extras in the film!

When we got to Bradford-on-Avon it was getting late. We hoped to moor beneath the lock but it was packed with boats. A chap was sat on the back of a hire boat just down from the lock. Cheekily we asked if we could moor alongside him for the night. "No problem," he said, "if you'll help me through the lock in the morning."

It turned out that he and his wife had hired the boat from a hire company at Trowbridge. His wife was disabled and was unable to assist with any of the locking or bridge operations. The chap had explained this to the hire company and said that he had never been boating before. The hire company had said that it wouldn't be a problem. Of course it was a problem. The K&A is not an easy canal to boat single handed even for experienced boaters. The locks are large and one swing bridge is impossible to boat through alone as when you have manually opened the bridge you find you are stood on the opposite side of the canal to the bridge! The poor couple had only gone a couple of miles and through Bradford on Avon lock before realising they couldn't manage, they were about to head back to the hire company base. I hope he complained to them, he had in effect paid a thousand pounds for two half days boating. The hire company should have suggested that he at least try boating on an easier, single width, canal first.

So we tied our boat to his and set off into the town in search of fish and chips. There is a nice chip shop with seating next to the railway station so we went there and ordered fish, chips and mushy peas, yum! When the food arrived, Mick leant over and nicked a large chip off my plate. In retaliation I leant over and picked up a huge fistful of chips off his plate and dropped them on mine. Unfortunately this act was witnessed by the waitress who had just returned with the condiments.
 
Totally embarrassed, I glared at Mick. "That was your fault!" I hissed.
Mick was laughing so much he couldn't eat. "Ha ha!" he said, "only you could be too uncouth for a chip shop!"