Working our way up the Witham.

The day was supposed to be nice so we decided to do some washing. As it was on I filled up with water and then set off.

Looking back straight down the witham the Stump dominates all. You can just see the railway bridge by the Grand Sluice and the boats on the visitor moorings to the left.

Anton's Gowt is a lock that gives access to several miles of a network of navigable drains. One day we will get to explore them a little but at this time of year I think the amount of weed about would make it a very frustrating experience.

This picture is of the same scene from roughly the same spot taken in the early 1900's. You can't see the house on the left, the Oak Tree Inn, because of the trees, but I think the house on the right is the same house as the white house behind the mobile office in the upper picture.

It comes to something when the highest point around for a trig. point is on the river bank at around 5 mt above sea level.

Langrick Bridge was opened in September 1907 after 4 years of planning and trying to get the local authorities to club together to finance it. In the end a public subscription was also taken up it is said, but according to newspaper reports of the day the 3s for a ticket to the opening ceremony and feast paid for the openening and any thing left went to the building fund. There were complaints of the day saying it wasn't pleasing enough to the eye. Geordie's is a chandlery etc just where the boats are moored. If you are looking for an opportunity the business is currently for sale.

There is a visitor pontoon. just upstream of the bridge.

Before the bridge was this little ferry that wasn't really suitable for the motor vehicle age.  The banks have increased in height and the trees have grown, but the chimney you can see in the top picture corresponds to that in the older picture. The bridge cost over £9000 to build, which included purchasing the rights to the ferry, which had sunk the month before the bridge was completed!

The whole river seems to be marked with kilometre posts which actually marks the distance from Lincoln.

There are still several of the old original milestones to be found. This one looks to have 26 on it which would also correspond to the distance to Lincoln. Following Brexit will it mean that all the old ones get refurbished and kilometres are banned?

The C&RT pontoon at Dog dyke was full so we continued on to Tattershall Bridge moorings. We managed to hang the clothes out to dry now the passing showers had passed through. The old Tattershall Bridge was built to carry a turnpike road in the late 1700's and continued to carry traffic for over 200 years.

The mooring pontoon is almost at the foot of the RAF Coningsby runway. It was where the famous 'Dambusters' were based, and housed some of the Vulcan bomber force too. It became the home of the Battle of Britain Memorial flight in 1976 and you can often see these fantastic planes coming and going. Not today tough as it is also home to 2 squadrons of Typhoons of the Quick Reaction Alert force to intercept interlopers into our airspace. It is also the base for training the pilots for Typhoons. Helen loved the roar as they sped off from the runway and banked either left or right. I was somewhat dismayed when she told me it was a period of night raining. It was fascinating to to them streak through the sky as they took of with just the nav. light strobe lights flashing. I am pleased to say they seemed to finish just after 2300.

I have never seen this type of wind turbine before we saw one down in Boston and now this one at Tattershall. Maybe it is a local supplier. It seems that they are £160 to £190 400 or 600w set up for 12 or 24v.