Bye Bye to Bedford.

The mooring was very peaceful and we had a great night. It was lovely to wake up to a view across the river/park, and then to hear the early rowers going through their paces.

This was the mooring from the footbridge into the town centre. Bedford has made a great destination for the trip up the Great Ouse, which is the 4th longest river in England. It feels a bit like a Venice as there seems to be waterways everywhere on this side of the town. The longest rivers are 1. Severn 2. Thames 3. Trent 4. Great Ouse 5. Wye 6. Leeds Liverpool Canal!? 7. Nene 8. Tweed 9. Avon 10. Aire. We have now navigated on eight of them.

Believe it or not this is the entrance to a shopping centre! It wasn't always so as it was opened in 1834 as the the newly named Bedford modern school. In 1974 the school had become far too cramped so a new school was built and this was vacated. All was demolished, except the frontage and now there is a shopping centre behind.

The original bequest by William Harper for the education of the young gave this house as the school, some land in Bedford and some fields in Holborn, London. Harper was born in Bedford and was a weaver that went to London and became the Lord Mayor in 1561 and knighted in 1562. The school moved from here to Harpur Square.

The Harper name was changed to Harpur in 1764, two hundred years after he passed, by the school, supposedly because it looked better in Latin.

These five metre sculptures were commissioned by Bedford Council in 2009. It was designed by Kent artist Rick Kirby and is titled 'Reflections of Bedford'.

One of the hero's of Bedford is John Howard 1726 - 1790. He was born in London and inherited great wealth. He moved to an estate near Bedford and in 1773 was made the High Sheriff  of Bedfordshire. One of his responsibilities was the prisons and he was disgusted with what he found. He managed to get two laws through parliament  that made prison conditions much better. In 1775 he embarked on a tour if England and Welsh prisons and travelled widely abroad to see and compare prisons all over Europe. He died in the Ukraine from Typhus on one of his tours.  It is a fine statue of Howard in his travelling clothes as he covered many thousands of miles in his reform of prison. The statue was sculpted by Alfred Gilbert. The Howard Association was formed in 1866 after John. It became the Howard League for Prison Reform in 1921 when it merged with another charity.

The Corn Exchange was built in 1874 as a business venue but also a concert hall and as a meeting place. During WWII the BBC music and religious departments moved here due to the bombing in London. Regular broadcasts were made from here as well as the 1944 Proms. Many famous names performed here at the time. Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Vera Lynn, Marlene Dietrich and many others. Glenn Miller was based here and broadcast from the hall. There is a bust of Glenn Miller above the wording on the front of the building.

 This is the Shire Hall that was built in the French Gothic Style and was designed by Alfred Waterhouse who was the architect of the Natural History Museum in London. 

We visited the Higgins Bedford Museum that opened at 1100. We spent two hours looking round there so we were late getting away. The view down the embankment on the left and the park on the right. The lock is just ahead on the right.

From Castle Mill Lock, the slowest lock on the Great Ouse in my opinion, I noticed the Airship hangers at Cardington poking up above the trees. Airships were started to be built here by Short Brothers in 1915 when they made them for the Royal Navy. The nearer No.1 hanger was built then. In 1919 the airship business was Nationalised and became the Royal Airship Works. Withe R100 and R101 project it was extended and No.2 was brought from RNAS Pulham bit by bit and erected here in 1928. When the R101 crashed all work stopped on them and it wasn't until 1936/37 it started making barrage balloons and became a training school. Since 1968 the sheds have often been used for film studios with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Star Wars films to name but a few.

The strength of the current revealed itself by needing 200 fewer revs to achieve the same speed. We met the wide beam charity boat 'John Bunyan' on the way down. She is run by the Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway Trust. Their aim is to promote the water connection between the Grand Union and the Great Ouse. If it is ever built it will be a cracking circuit of the Great Ouse, Middle Levels, and River Nene. It will be extremely busy then I predict.

This is a great little mooring near Willington Lock with a lovely log cabin and a boat moored in the river.

We moored up on the lock island of a lock that had been built in the 17th century but was made redundant by later improvements. It is a rough EA mooring and is lovely and quiet. There is just enough water for us and it seems that we have it to ourselves, at least until 2100 that is. Another great day on the Great Ouse.