Rapidly Rising.

Sunday 22nd September

We got back to the boat and after a cup of tea we decided to head on up the locks to see how far we could get.

We had turned around when we had arrived so it was just a matter of letting go and heading off. It was overcast still but we didn't have any rain all the day. The wall seems to have been the retaining wall for the railway that looped up to the current Northampton station. On the towpath side of the canal was the locomotive depot that is now an industrial estate behind a fence.

As we left this lock a boat heading down were quite worried about the river levels, but we couldn't enlitten them. However I wouldn't have gone on to the river if I hadn't a safe place to get to after the days of rain that we had had. This was the first lock on our upward journey. The scaffolding is over a pipeline and behind is the old railway bridge of the Roade, Northampton and Rugby Railway line.

The second lock of the day and the second boat coming down. On the left where the tall trees are was the Hansbury Hill Iron Works as well as a brick and tile works. The smelter was started in 1873 using ore mined in the hill behind the factory. The mines then spread around the surrounding hills and being brought by light railway. Ore was also brought by boat and rail in small quantities. It finally closed in 1936. The mining of the hill caused the loss of much of an iron age hill fort although some artefacts were recovered.

Like many parts of the system reeds are encroaching the water. I don't suppose that many boats come up and down this branch due to the many locks, only those set on using the River Nene. However the reeds don't really block the route as they are pliable and if you lean into them you can push them aside and so pass other boats even in this sort of cover.

On the way down to Northampton a couple of days previously there was not much of a trickle in this feeder for the River Nene but there was already a good flow on it. It doesn't bode well for anybody out on the river in the next few days me thinks.

As you come to the motorway the lock wheeling starts in earnest. The motorway travels roughly east/west but there is a connecting road that heads nearly north/south. This has been built along the route of the old Northampton and Peterborough Branch Railway of the L&NWR. At the top it joined up to the mainline at Blisworth Junction.

The bottom gates have no foot boards or bridge so should entail walking right around the lock to close one of the gates. I was at the helm so I was able to close one of the gates from the stern and when we had risen up enough I could open/close the offside paddle as Helen had gone up to ready the next lock. To save her walking back I would also close up. We sped up the flight and from setting off to leaving the top lock was a very good 3 hours and five minutes. We were flying, so hence no photos.

We topped up with water at the top, turned to starb'd onto the Grand Union and found a spot on the visitor moorings after a very good day.

Happy at Delapre Abbey.

Sunday 22nd September

On a dull but largely dry day we decided to pay a visit to the Delapre Abbey that was just down the road from the canal basin.

We had booked a guided tour of the building at 11 0'clock and as we were a little early we went for a walk around the outside of the building and found our way to the walled garden. The garden is very large with a green house and a game store and surrounded by red brick walls. The original building on the site was a nunnery, the Abbey of St. Mary de la Pre (St. Mary of the countryside), a Cluniac nunnery, one of only two in England. When the wife of Edward I, Eleanor of Castile died she was laid at the chapel here on the way  to burial in Westminster, and up the road are the remains of one of the Eleanor Crosses.  In the land to the front of the house in 1460 the armies of York and Lancaster. Despite being outnumbered the Yorkist won the day when some of the opposition came over to them and allowed them through the defences. Henry VI was captured and York won the day.

After Henry VIII abolished the nunnery the estate passed to the Tate Family. They were gentlemen and knights and staunch protestants. They took the side of Parliament in the Civil War and Zouch Tate gave evidence against Charles I, luckily, or cleverly, he did not sign the death warrant so when Charles II was restored to the throne he did not lose his lands, or his life. This range of buildings at the rear of the house was built during their tenure.

Near the greenhouse is this brick sculpture by Walter Ritchie called Lady with Kittens.

When the Tate line ran out the estate was sold to the Bouverie family in 1764. They were a Huguenot family. They had become the Earl of Radnor and made a fortune out of silk weaving and being merchants. They were still at the house in 1851 and the gardens were maintained by a gardener, a farm bailiff, six labourers and a boy. Nowadays it is just volunteers and they had managed to keep lots of colour in the garden.

This is the front of the house and was erected by the Tates when they were sweeping away the old nunnery buildings. There was no great hall to walk into just a passage that was a bit like a cloister of a cathedral, or nunnery! There were only three of us on the tour that was only £5 and our guide was very good, full of knowledge and humour too.

There is an inner courtyard to the building. The stone lower floor is the cloister like passage that was built around the mid 1600's by the Tate's. The tiled upper floor was added later to give access to the rooms above without having to go through each one. In this courtyard until 1958 were other buildings and even a covered staircase that ran from left to right to where the window id to the left of the stone chimney.

I didn't get many pictures of the interior that were worth reproducing here but they were very fine. This is the salon that was created by the early Bouverie family. The Bouverie family continued until 1895 and it was rented out for another 60 years. After that the County Council bought it and were keen to demolish it it seems. However a campaign was started to save it and it finally became the Northampton Record Office until again becoming redundant once more but was saved by a Trust set up to safeguard it and restoration was commenced in 2015 and is ongoing.

It is less than 30 mins walk from the canal basin and is well worth the walk even if it is just s troll round the grounds and a visit to the cafe.

Nosing around Northampton.

Saturday 21st September

The next day was dry and sunny and we had a day looking around Northampton and doing a little shopping.

The first building of note I noticed was on the corner of Fish Street (where the Medieval fish markets was held) and The Ridings. I love a carved stone or brick frontage and this one had the lot, bull's heads, seductive ladies, fishes and sort of trees with bold lettering. Malcolm Inglis and Co. Glasgow were leather factors and dealers and so were the centre of the show making business here. The company was set up in 1796 by George Inglis in Edinburgh. His son John took over in 1848 and moved the business to Glasgow seeing that it was fast becoming the industrial centre of Scotland. The business grew slowly as by 1868 there were only 4 employees. John retired in 1874 and his son Malcolm took over and straightaway grew the business by opening branches in Northampton, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Leicester. Northampton was the best and biggest. The crests below the bull's head have the names of all the branches. It was to be their showroom and offices. It was designed by Glasgow architect and the stone carving was done by Yorkshireman Abraham Broadbent who also did the work on the Victoria and Albert Museum. It opened in 1900. After the business closed it became a pub for a while.

In St. Giles Square is the 3rd Guild Hall for Northampton. This one was designed by Edward William Godwin and opened in May 1864. This was the building that has the square clock tower at the centre of three bays either side. The clock and bell were added in 1867. Strangely it seems that the bell is not bell shaped, but a hemisphere!

The extension to the west was added in 1892 giving 14 bays and sculptor R. L. Bolton was commissioned to provide statues for between each window of Monarchs and other famous people. In then great hall, that unfortunately wasn't open, is a mural by Colin Gill of famous local people completed in 1925 and then another mural of Muses Contemplating Northampton by Henry Bird finished in 1949. There is also a statue of Spencer Percival, MP for Northampton and the only Prime Minister to be assassinated. To the east of all this is a 1992 addition too.

The Plough Hotel on Bridge Street was built in the 1890's as a coaching inn with brick and stone exterior and mock beams inside. In WWII it was taken over by the American Red Cross and was used as a leave centre for American troops. Over three years it hosted 174,000 troops. In 2016 they applied for planning for 56 apartments. It was turned down but it seems that the original building will remain, but some extensions at the back will be demolished to make room for 34 apartments, parking etc.

On George Row and facing Gold Street is the church of All Saints. It was built on the site of the Church of All Hallows that was burned down in the Great Fire of Northampton in 1675. King Charles II gave 1,000 tons of timber for the rebuilding. At one time its design was attributed to Christopher Wren but it is more likely to have been Henry Bell of King's Lynn. The main body of the church was completed in 1680 but the columned portico was added in 1701 and the cupalo in 1704. The statue at the front of the portico is of Charles II was placed in 1712. The church is of the Catholic tradition within the Church of England and as the parish rejected the ordination of women I think they only have male priests

Looking east towards the chancel you can see that the nave is just about square with four central columns. To the left is the original pulpit with Victorian base. The reredos, the screen behind the altar on the eastern wall, has the Crucifixion in the centre and then a panel of the Ten Commandments on either side. There was little stained glass and maybe this was why it looked nice and bright within the church. There is a nice cafe at the front of the church partly under the portico.

We saw that the Holy Sepulchre so after lunch we decided to go and have a look. From this end of the church it looks like a 'normal' church made from the local ironstone. These parts of the church were added after the original church was erected.

The outstanding feature of the original church is that it was round. There are only 4 round Medieval churches still in use in England, London, Cambridge and Little Maplestead in Essex are the others. The Earl of Northampton Simon do Senlas went on the first Crusade and would have seen Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. This is where the site of the Crucifixion was supposed to have taken place and of the tomb where the body was laid, hence the name. In Northampton the church is roughly half the size of the Jerusalem one and was built in 1100.

A. Watts and Sons Ltd are one of the few department stores that are left these days. They were established in 1896 here in Northampton and are still today a home furnishings hub. Until the end of the 90's they had a very large toy department too.

Further down Abington Street is the Northampton Central Library. It was erected in 1910 after a design by Herbert Norman, a local architect. The statues in the niches are of John Dryden, a Northamptonshire poet and critic, Thomas Fuller, a Northamptonshire Churchman, historian and a writer. In fact he was one of the first English authors who could make a living from his writings. There is also George Washington and Andrew Carnegie up there. This library was one of the first to have a children's library within it, introduced in 1912.

This lovely Art Deco building was built in 1938 as the Co-op store in Abington Street. There is another entrance on St. Giles Street that has the name and date above it. The shop closed in 2005 and since then it has been restyled with an arcade running through known as The Ridings Arcade, with small shops accommodated.

On the way back to the boat we crossed South Bridge over the River and we could see this on the gable end of a building just across the bridge. Norton's Corn, Hay and Chaff Store. Sack's ...  Hire. and then low down it says Norton's Sack Depot, Corn sacks Let On E......  Looking back on old maps there may have been a blacksmiths here at one time. Across the road was the goods depot of the Northampton and Peterborough Branch Railway and just to the south was another goods depot. The N and P Branch Railway became part of the LNWR in 1846.

Many Murals

 

I have never had the time to take these photos of the murals as we went down the locks before but as we were travelling in slow motion today I could get round to it. Did you spot the second 'N' was the same as the first? It seems that I forgot to take the photo of it. It maybe the same, but I doubt it.

 

Slowly does it.

 Friday 20th September

A nice quiet night even with the railway so close as luckily it is in a slight cutting where we moored. The first train I heard was after 06:00 anyway.

Once underway it got crowded on the water, and in the field were an even greater number.

There was nobody on the services so we stopped for a top up and dump some rubbish before heading on in the gloom and the threat of rain. The Northampton Arm opened in 1815 (The year of the Battle of Trafalgar and Waterloo) and was to give an outlet to the sea via the RiverNene. It was important to Northampton as the River Nene Navigation was unpredictable due to silt and water levels, and the canal was thought to bring permanent access to the rest of the country.

Not a good photo but the buildings at the boatyard look very interesting. The Grand Junction Canal was open from Braunston to Blisworth in 1797 but the tunnel was not completed. I assume that the boat yard and the Navigation Inn that was next to the junction are from those early days.

We were very surprised when we got to the first lock to find a boat that had moored ahead of us last night and left just after 07:00 this morning. It seems despite getting there at 08:00 they couldn't go down as the lock keeper was adjusting the levels as some of the pounds were empty! They had just bought the boat at Rugby Boats and were heading towards Cambridge, verrrrrry slowly...

I kept going ahead of them to set the next lock for them and we were still catching them up at each lock. 

I then also started to close up the bottom gates of the lock we were heading to after they had left when they got the hang of working ahead. They were speeding up, a little.

There was another lock keepers cottage here I think. There is a bunch of flowers here but not sure why. Sirius was the boat ahead of us. They seemed to be well satisfied with their purchase and it did look a tidy boat. It was for sale at £54,950 but they told me that the price had dropped by £10,000 and after a survey had needed a further £7,000 needing doing to it, so I'm not sure whether this is the original price, probably with the initial £10,000 reduction.

After a bit of rain at the top by the time we got to the motorway bridges the sun was out. They young couple ahead had worn themselves out and decided to stop for a rest and some lunch just after the motorway so we could crack on.

The canal starts going through some park lands next to the Nene (Pronounced Nen in this part of the world) and is a very nice run with clear waters but slow with the weed and depth.

The lift tower stands out like a sore thumb, quite literally it seems. Built by the Express Lift Co. and opened in 1982 by HM Queen Elizabeth. In 1997 it became a Grade II listed building. In the same year Express Lifts were bought out by Otis lifts who used their USA facilities and the building. It has six lift shafts or various speeds and one is used for safety testing by British Standards and others. It was sold to Wilcon Homes in 1999, but is now privately owned and known as the National Lift Tower doing similar things as previously, plus abseiling, I'm not sure whether it is externally or internally. It is 418 ft high and 48 ft at the base and 28ft at the top.

After nearly five and a half hours we arrive at the river lock. We did debate chancing finding a berth on the river and not having a licence, and heading out of the lock to wind, but in the end just went to the end and winded before mooring at the first rings trying to avoid the trees that would have blocked the canal if we had moored opposite them a little further up. Here we are with the Carlsberg brewery over the way. We locked up and rewarded ourselves with a few pints and a walk. In 1883 beyond where the present brewery is were two older breweries, The Northampton and Phoenix Brewerys as well as the gas works. At the end of the canal, tow path side, between the end of the canal towards the road, were saw mills and, after WWI, and oil tank depot.