Dear Motley Crew,
Thursday the 25th of March.
The crew was up earlier than usual and there was a tangible sense of expectation in the air, for today we were leaving the marina – the first time since being plunged into Lockdown MK III, three months ago. Such was the significance of this occasion, that several of the locals arrived with bubbly in hand to see us on our way and wish us a Covid-free cruising season. Formalities concluded, we cast off, and turning to starboard, headed towards the bright lights of London Town.
To travel to London from Blisworth by road, is a distance of around 68 miles, and should, on a good day and traffic allowing, take about an hour and a half. To travel to London from Blisworth by narrowboat, however, is a distance of 92 miles, and could take us around 10 days if we hurried along, or perhaps a month or more if we meandered. Having consulted our sextant, the appropriate tables, and relevant crew, in addition to factoring in the location of relevant supermarkets, we calculated that it would take us a little over a fortnight to wend our way towards the capital.
The youngest members of the crew were excited at the prospect of our visit to London and had compiled a list of questions for us to ask the Queen – why wasn’t her husband a king; was she going to come to Australia again; and did she always wear a crown – so we were hoping to be able to find time to put these matters to her, and perhaps take HRH and the Duke for a cruise. We had heard that he’d been poorly of late and, with him being a naval man, we thought that a trip along the canals might do him a power of good.
Our first challenge, and one that loomed not too far from the marina, was the Blisworth Tunnel. It would be our longest and deepest tunnel to date, and it would be fair to say that we were slightly anxious. We would be travelling at a depth of 143 feet (43 m) for 3,075 yards (2,812 m), and although it is a two-way tunnel, we were not keen on the very real prospect of meeting an on-coming boat. But, as you’ll recall from your reading of The Bear Hunt, “can’t go over it, can’t go under it, have to go through it!”
Not far from the entrance to the tunnel, we passed under Candle Bridge, the last opportunity in earlier times, to replenish your supply of candles before plunging into the darkness up ahead. Sort of an historic version of “last petrol for 300 miles” I guess.
As our LED tunnel lights obviated the need for candles to illuminate the darkness, we pressed on, with all interior and exterior lights ablaze.
Two things give narrow-boaters reassurance as they enter the blackness. The first is that the Blisworth tunnel is dead straight – no bulging sides or curly kinks along its length to ensnare the unwary.
The second is that in 1983, its linings were repaired and re-constructed, and the middle section, which was sagging badly due to water ingress, was lined with steel and concrete panels, a prototype for the lining used a few years later in the construction of the Chunnel. As we chugged along its length, we were emboldened and comforted by this knowledge and some 30 minutes later, emerged triumphant at the furthest portal. Even the solid drenching that we’d received from the leaking brickwork had done little to dampen our sense of achievement and our relief that we had not encountered any on-coming craft.
Some weeks previously, we’d walked the route of the tunnel above ground.
It had, of course, involved a lot of mud!
The original construction shafts are now used as air shafts and the line of the tunnel can be traced above ground by following these brick chimney-like structures.
Twenty-two of these shafts were dug to facilitate the tunnel's construction
How on earth, we wondered, did they manage to plot and excavate this tunnel in the days before GPS and TBM’s?
Having successfully navigated the tunnel and the following seven locks, we were on the lookout for a good mooring. We had spied a church tower off in the distance, and I’d like to say that it was the lure of history that drew us to moor there, but it was, in fact, the lambs.
We are, nevertheless, most grateful to the lambs, for they introduced us to Grafton Regis, a small community (pop 100) with an intriguing history. Those of the crew who had had the benefit of a Christian Brother's education, recalled distant and fusty Latin classes, and salvaged the knowledge that “Regis” meant “of the king”. The connection with this small settlement soon became apparent.
How extraordinary, we thought, but we were to discover that there was more to this story than merely a clandestine wedding. At the end of the 15th century, a grandson of Elizabeth and Edward, one Henry VIII, inherited the house and the manor in Grafton Regis. It is recorded that in 1529, the village was the setting for preliminary negotiations between Cardinal Campegio, the papal envoy, and Henry, negotiations that would ultimately lead to Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and his marriage to Anne Boleyn. Who would have thought that the beginnings of the Church of England may well have been initiated not far from the lamb’s paddock!
Leaving Grafton Regis in our wake, we pushed on towards the village of Cosgrove which marks the boundary with Buckinghamshire, but we had no time to stop and explore for we were locked into a schedule. We passed under its stunningly beautiful Bridge 65,
and over its Iron Trunk Aqueduct,
and the "cattle creep" that lies beneath.
This was once used to take the horses to the stables on the other side of the canal
We paused overnight in Wolverton, and then the next day, flashed through Milton Keynes, Fenny Stratford, and Leighton Buzzard. As we moored up in Cheddington, we looked at each other and said “What are we doing? What-are-we-doing??” This is not what we’re here for – this rushing lemming-like along the canal just to get to London – and so the decision was made to trade the lights of the city for the delights of the country. And what delights we found.
A mere 15-minutes walk from our mooring was Bridego Bridge, a location that was catapulted into the history books in the early hours of the 8th August 1963. On that ordinary morning, the Glasgow to London mail train was making its scheduled run from Glasgow to Euston Station, when it was held up near this bridge, and robbed of 120 bags of cash, amounting to an estimated £2.6 to £3 million.
In a country that is obsessed with affixing blue plaques to any building or structure of any historical note, we were greatly surprised to see that this was the only acknowledgment of The Great Train Robbery having occurred at this site.
As we pondered this anomaly, three cyclists suddenly shot out from under the bridge and made off down the road at great speed. We hooted with laughter as we simultaneously recalled Peter Mayle’s Hotel Pastis, and the elegant simplicity of its protagonists using pushbikes to escape after a bank robbery. Perhaps Ronnie and the boys should have employed a similar means of escape.
With our sense of equilibrium having been restored by decisions made, we cruised on now at a more sedate rate towards Marsworth Junction where we turned off the Grand Union Canal and the route to London, and headed instead down the Aylesbury Arm. Our meeting with the Queen would have to be postponed until another day.
At only 6 ¼ miles in length, the Aylesbury Arm is often considered by many boaters to be too insignificant to bother with, but we found it to be a source of many delights and some surprises. At Lock 4 – Black Jack’s Lock – we were rather startled to see about half a dozen tall eucalypts growing in the garden of the lock-keeper’s cottage.
While we waited for the lock to empty out, we fell into conversation with the cottage’s owners and discovered that, although born in England, she and her husband had left the country as £10 Poms, to live for over 20 years in Australia. It seems that the eucalypts were planted as a sentimental reminder of those years spent in the Antipodes.
Principally of a rural nature, the Aylesbury Canal demands that you operate 16 single locks before it offers up the treasures to be found in its basin and Old Town.
We were surprised to find plentiful moorings, an abundance of supermarkets from which to replenish our larder, and a market square that is still the focus of weekly farmer’s markets. We also came upon the now-decommissioned Aylesbury Crown Court House, which, it turns out, was the very courthouse where the captured members of the Great Train Robbery were sentenced.
Narrow cobbled lanes,
led to delightful finds.
Unfortunately, Covid rules allowed only for take-away coffee
As we wandered the streets, we kept our ears pricked for the sound of "pit, pat, piddle-pat; pit, pat, waddle-pat", for everyone knows that Aylesbury is most famous for its ducks; pale- pink of beak and bright-yellow of foot.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, before the advent of the railway, breeders walked their ducks the 40 miles to London. They made overnight stops along the way at inns that had large yards built specifically to house the flocks, and in the mornings, once the herders were rested, the ducks would be shoed; that is, walked through a cold, tarry solution and then sawdust. These ‘shoes’ protected their feet along the rough road to London. Who'd have thought it!
It is said that Beatrix Potter's much-loved Jemima Puddleduck was modeled on the Aylesbury Duck
Tim Minchin had been right again - too much focusing on the sights ahead can mean that you can miss the shiny bits to the side, and Aylesbury and its canal-side villages had certainly been another "shiny bit". It was with reluctance that we headed back along the canal to re-join the Grand Union, and, eventually, to make our way back to Blisworth and our second jabs. Now, our more leisurely pace would allow us to pause in those places through which we had previously rushed – something we were looking forward to.
The Captain, The Commadore, and Mrs Chippy
Sadly, our opportunity to go boating with the Duke has, like the Duke, passed.
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