A Meandering Miscellany.

It was a very quiet night and we only heard a couple of boats pass along the main channel before we turned in. At about 0730 this morning we saw a 'fat' boat slow down and start to back into the mooring. There was plenty of room for them and I helped them tie up. I bet they were miffed that we were there though.

We got underway about 0930 and were soon at Great Barford Bridge. From upriver you can see the brick work that was added to the original bridge in 1874 to widen the road way. Amazingly before that the original bridge was first widened with a wooden construction in 1818. You can see the original bridge through the brick arches.

From down river you can easily see the early 15th century original bridge. There was plenty of room on the moorings below the bridge and we were keeping an eye pout for a water point marked on the map. We spotted it under a tree so swung round and tied up. We put the washer on and started taking water. We were soon full so spun round and headed for the lock. Whilst we were there there were plenty of folk arriving with paddle boards and blow up kayaks. There were even two lady wild swimmers set off up river. A bloke walking his dog told us that there had been about twenty boats trying to stay moored up last weekend!

I noticed on the remains of an old lock buttress at Great Barford Lock the initials C & F again with the date of 1844. I still can't find out what they allude to but have read that a certain Sir Thomas Cullam inherited a part share in the upper of the upper river and proceeded to spend a lot of money rebuilding locks, sluices and staunches in the 1830's and 40's.

Some of the leaves look like they have rays of sun, few and far between today, playing on them. I think the lighter green is just new leaves.

London is not the only place that you see these old ships lifeboats, but few ever have the ship's name still on them. This one has come from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship 'Fort Victoria'. She was a new breed of tanker cum stores ship when ordered in 1986. She was built at Harland and Wolff in Belfast and launched in 1990 and not commissioned until 1994. She is 204m long, beam 30.4m and depth of 9.7m, and can do 20kts. She carries ammunition, fuel, food and water to be able to store the ships of the Royal Navy at sea. She started a refit in 2017 to enable her to work with the new RN aircraft carriers and meet tanker regulations. This lifeboat obviously came from that refit as the vessels new lifeboats have all orange hulls, unlike the old ones like this that had the white below.

I love the reflections as we pass a calmer bit of the water.  There was no sun today but little wind so it wasn't at all chilly.

As you approach St. Neots we passed under a foot/cycle bridge that was installed in 2011 to connect Eaton Socon and the Eynesbury suburb of St. Neots. It must make a lot of difference for access to the town. I was impressed with the length of the raided portion over the flood plain. It just shows how much the river does flood.

There is a very busy camping and caravan site by the river. There are also a lot of mobile homes too. Handy if you are a fisherman I suppose. 

We saw that the pontoon by the Priory Centre had space so we stopped and topped up the water as the washing had finished and I dashed into town to by some milk too, before heading off again. Did youknow that St. Neots was named after a Cornish monk called St. Neot. He was canonised and his body kept in the cornish town of St. Neots. A priory was built at Eynesbury and all large churches needed 'relics', and the monks purloined the body of St. Neots for the new church in Huntingdonshire and the Priory had its named changed in his honour.

From the river you can see this beautiful building in the Gothic Revival style. It was part of the Paine's empire. In the town they had a brewery, sawmill flour mills and malt extract factory among other businesses. They didn't seem to have much luck with fires and when the old mill burned down it was quickly replaced with this gem in 1909/10. It quickly became known as Paine's Cathedral. When it became redundant in 1990 much of it was pulled down keeping this part that is Grade II listed. It now has office space and apartments for 19 young people between 16 and 25 that are supported during their stay. What a place to have a flat.

There was a cruiser on the middle of the GOBA moorings by the Paxton Pits Nature Reserve but we managed to tie up to a couple of trees and get ashore. We had managed to pick the first wet day for ages to do the washing but it was soon drying inside. When the rain seemed to stop I set about changing the oil etc. I had suddenly realised that I was well overdue with this task. However, once again I picked the wrong day as the rain came again. However I completed the job, and I must do better to be on time as I think diesel engines are pretty forgiving so long as you change the oil. I also need to change the coolant soon.