After a couple of days in Nottingham we set forth once more and Headed down Beeston Cut towards the Trent.
Just before Lenton Chain, where the Nottingham Canal headed north and where the Trent Navigation's Beeston Cut joined with it to link with the Trent above Nottingham is Trevithick's Boat Yard. This opened at the same time as the canal 1796, but it was in 1903 when Tom Trevithick moved his ship.boat building business here from Gainsborough where he had started his yard in 1895.
Soon afterwards he bought two steamers and started up pleasure trips along the canal and as far as Trent Lock. The picture is of one of them passing his yard in 1908.
Later a part of the business was running canoe and rowing boat hire from near Wilford Bridge on the Trent. The popularity of this area fell and business was hard until WWII and as nobody could go far he started running his steamers from the embankment near Trent Bridge to Colwich Pleasure Park (near Trent Basin) and he did very well. All the time doing building and repair from his yard. This photo from the 1950's shows the yard on the left, and a large building that had been a blacksmiths shop and had been bought by the boat yard in 1920, and then Clayton's Wharf. In both pictures is Gregory Street Bridge that was replaced when the modern industrial estate was created nearby.
We stopped to use the services and wait for a boat penning up the lock. There were two wide locks here at Beeston. The one you can see penned up above the weir and on to the Trent. The other ran to left that you can make out at the bow. This lock penned down to the river below the weir so the Wilford area could be accessed by shallow draft boats,
It is awkward leaving the lock and the heavy wooden fendering on the wall to the right tells you where most folk end up.
Once clear and away from the weir it is back on to the wide open spaces of the Trent.
This stretch of the Trent is lovely with lots to see on the bank . Homes or holiday places that span from ultra modern to rudimentary and many with boats moored on the river.
Next comes Barton Island which seems to bea real Huckleberry Finn spot. In 1916 it was for let at reasonable terms and consisted of a bungalow with a tennis lawn and rose walks. By 1953 there were two huts on it one belonging to the Ist Nottingham Sea Scouts and the other by 2nd Beeston Sea Scouts. The name on the advert for the letting was King of Beastmarket Hill in Nottingham. This could have been Mrs. Elizabeth King who ran a pork pie shop there. Her pies became famous and are still on sale in Nottingham and Borough Market in London. The shop was demolished though in 1966.
The winter floods had shifted large amounts of sand and gravel on the Trent and lower down there are had been groundings outside some of the locks. Here at Thrumpton Shoal was another place where it had built up and dredging was taking place. In October 1874 in the course of a week around 250 boats were stuck on this patch. There had been a long summer drought and a massive build up of 'new weed' Canadian pondweed. Over the weekend around 200 gongoozlers came to watch the fun. There was a cluster of 82 boats were almost piled together, many of them carrying cheese for Nottingham Fair. In their attempts to get clear there were many lines to the bank, kedge anchors out in the river, lines to the bank for blocks and purchases as well as to multi horse rigs. They looked like they were stuck in a spiders web. There was much to see for the bystanders as the boatmen pushed, pulled and heaved and crossed the river on horses etc, often falling into gravel pits. The paper was proud to say that only a couple of times did profanities pass their lips! On the Saturday night many managed to get clear but 30 or 40 were left. A coasl barge that was laying across the channel was badly damaged by several other boats colliding with her amidships
Next, on the south bank, come Barton in Fabis. You can't see it though but at one time in the 1930's it was a hot destination for day trippers to come. Every house had tea and hot water for sale, as well as ice creams etc. On the north bank the landing was close to the mouth of the River Erewash.
This picture shows the scene in 1904 looking from the north bank and it appears on a map of 1774. In the 30's there were two punt like craft offering their service run by George and Arthur Chamberlain. Arhur Tindal seems to have taken over from them in the 1950's until it closed in the early 1960's.
A little further upstream was the wharf that served the gypsum mines at Gotham and district. The wharf seems to have become disused by the 1950's. There is nothing to see from a distance, but worth a closer look perhaps.
A little further still you come to the village of Thrumpton, of which little can be seen from the river. How ever this was not the case in the past as there was a wharf and factory there, along with another ferry.. The plaster Mill was linked to the gypsum mines by a long plateway railway. You can see on this 1921 map that it was a large concern. The plateway can be seen heading off to the right. The factory seems to have been started in the 1840's. In 1877 the works was up for sale. In 1874 it was owned by Joseph Gregory of Loughborough following the dissolving of a partnerships with others. In 1876 it seems to have been owned by a Thomas Robey whose father had owned it before him. The mines and mill were owned by the same people and as he wasn't qualified in anyway to run the mine he was fined £5 following a death by asphyxiation when digging a new shaft for ventilation and pumping. The name of the company was the Trent Mining Company
This postcard from around 1900 shows the ferry and the factory. As you can is it was a fairly large concern. In 1877 it 's lease was for saleand we can see the land was owned by Lady Byron of Trumpton Hall at £600 per year plus royalties on every ton of plaster at 1s 6d and the same for every 1000 bricks. The factory had 20HP engine driving the machinery, calcining kilns, boiling ovens, tramway and steam locomotives and waggons. The output of the mines was said to be 1/8 best stone, 1/8 pottery stone, 1/4 second stone and 1/2 coarse stone. There were also two narrow boats suggesting that at least the pottery stone products would have been transported up the Trent and Mersey. There were adverts for boatmen in 1900 that specified that they should be used to working on the Trent so perhaps they also had barges to work the river. By 1891 the company had become incorporated and one Albert Robey was still one of the directors. There was a court case between the sharholders and directors and by 1907 the business was owned by the Trent Navigation Co. In 1933 a Ruston Diesel 2'2" narrow gauge locomotive was sold to Gotham mines so perhaps this was the end of the enterprise as by WWII the factory disappears from the maps.
The next spot of interest is the Cranfleet lock onto the cut that navigates around the weir and leads to the River Soar and the Erewash Canal and onward to Sawley on the Trent and Shardlow for the Trent and Mersey Canal.
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