Brighouse

The mooring is to be recommended as it is quiet and close to the shops.  Across the canal is a large block of flats that I saw being changed from an old disused mill seven years ago.  Rather up market with a gym for the residents on the ground floor.

Being so close to the town one wonders at the lack of passers-by.  Mind you the only thing along here is the canal and part of a local walk.  The evidence of that walk is left behind by a number of the participants. I do wish they would clear up after their dogs.

There are not the large shops of Huddersfield here but there are all the services that you could want.  If you don't like Sainsbury then a short walk will take to to a giant Tesco. There is a mix of old and new with the past buildings still standing here and there.  The bus shelters with the electronic display of the next bus due seems a bit incongruous :-) but very handy.  Two minutes up the road is the railway station and its only 6 minutes to Huddersfield. 

The place is full of old mills or the remains of them near the River Calder.  There is one more modern that is on the right of the pic.

Part of the old world is the first cross-over bridge.  The approach shows the well worn centre cobbles where the horse would change sides of the canal as it pulls the boat along

The main arch of the bridge has been replaced but the way the horse cross over can been seen.

The view from the window has changed.  There are very few swans up here but lots of Canada geese.  There is a wetland a bit further on where I have been told that they gather in large numbers.

Mirfield to Brighouse

nb Success had finished its visit to Huddersfield and went past on their return to Stanley Bridge.  That was the only other boat moving today that we saw.

As we left the moorings at Mirfield I noticed the house that stood next to the bridge.

There it was.  A door that lead straight out onto the canal.  I wonder what that was used for in the past. Handy if you have your own boat.

Up at the flood lock the indicator still said green so opened up and moved out onto the river again.  All day we have hopped from river to canal and back again.  High banks and lots of trees.

Periodical one comes across some of the old parts of the canal industry and in the main they have been cleaned and look in good nick.

Whereever we are it is only a few minutes from the middle of Huddersfield and it feels like the middle of nowhere and in the countryside.

It has been misty all day and the difficult lock of the day is at Kirklees. Two 57.5 foot boats won't fit in here but if you're not in a hurry its no problem really. It just takes twice as long to get through.  The handspike is getting used a bit more often now with sluices needing it at every lock.

Eventually we reach Bridhouse locks.  Through the first lock - where we can both get in - and into the basin.  A couple of BW workboats are moored here.  The Brighouse and the Dewsbury were moored opposite the second lock.

Tonight the mooring is right outside Sainsburys which is the light coloured building on the right.  In front of it is the facility block.  I will have to reverse there tomorrow and pick up water.


If its a quiet mooring it is likely that we will stay here tomorrow and go for a wander.

Mirfield

The mooring at Mirfield is quiet apart from the fact that the nearby lane is cobbled and really makes the vehicles rumble as they go along it.

I took a walk into town to have a look around.  Its not very big but all you need to re-provision is here. Close by there is a Lidl, Co-op and Library with butchers and the rest a little further on. I found a charity shop to buy a couple of books in :-)

Wikipedia -Mirfield -The 13th century St Mary's Church was rebuilt in 1826. However, this church itself proved too small for the growing population, and was also regarded as too mean for the growing district. A completely new church, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, was built a few yards to the northwest, on the site of the old Castle Hall, a mansion which was home to the families successively of Mirfields (sometimes spelled Mirfin), Hetons and Beaumonts. 

GGS certainly got about a bit

People with links to Mirfield include Sir Patrick Stewart, actor, most notable for playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Alun Cochrane, comedian, known for his appearances on 8 out of 10 cats, Have I got news for you and Mock the week was born in Glasgow and raised in Mirfield

The BW workboat  Ure passed by this morning.  This is only the third boat we have seen on the move since Castleford.

I took walk to the nearby boatyard which according to the book has a chandlery. The shop no longer exists and neither does the next boatyard listed in the book having gone bust three months ago.  The mole grips will have to suffice for the time being.

While chatting to the owner of the yard he mentioned that the flood gates around the corner are closed (probably by the BW boat). I took a walk down and found that the river indicator is on green so it is OK to carry on tomorrow.

There are still some buildings from the industrial past to be seen even though they have been given a new use.

This is the view of the mooring from the other side of the bridge with the cobbled lane alongside. This is a  48 hour mooring and the red boat has been there since three weeks before Christmas.  One assumes that there is not much of a BW presence in the area.

Down at the flood lock is evidence of the the old horse drawn boats with deep grooves in the bridge edge that have been made by the tow rope.


At the moment we are heading for Hebden Bridge. The idea being to assist in the Towpath Tidy event on  7th.  After that we could either carry on along the Rochdale canal or turn around and go up past Leeds and over the Pennines.

Dewsbury Arm to Mirfield

The locks are all a bit on the short side and in two we had to go through one at a time.  You couldn't even get two 57.5 foot boats in together.  The worst is yet to come with Salterhebble getting a special mention on the Pennine blog.  I might have to go through in reverse on the way back.  Lots of country and cutting along here.

As a special gift to Caroline I have put in a pic of the geology going through on of the cuttings.  I was hoping for a fault but beggars can't be choosers.  

The bridges get more ornate as we travel higher up the canal.  Still waiting for a nice humpback with cross over :-)

Coming out on to the river at Greenwood Flood Lock I looked back and saw the fire brigade doing their thing damping down a fire at the waste paper firm.  The top of the engine was visible for ages as I came round  Thornhill.

Another fierce lock to cope with.  With a shorter boat its not too much of a problem.  I will have to start using the hand spike as it puts the water under the boat - hopefully.  There is a boatyard here but no diesel or chandlery but there is a Welsh flag flying on the other side of the lock so its not all bad.

The boat yard has a RAF boat or a boat in a RAF disguise.  I doubt if there is much call for a rescue on the canal.  It seems to have seen some action as it looks as thought there is a line of bullet holes in the flag.

Trundled on and started looking for moorings and soon reached Mirfield and stopped there. On a 48 hour mooring so could stay tomorrow as well.

Calder Grove to the Dewsbury Arm

Its a very peaceful mooring at Calder Grove.  The Navigation Inn is just a short walk down the canal but I had a night off from checking out the local pubs :-)  Dash had come ashore to see what I was up to.  In fact I was doing my bit at the lock clearing the rubbish that flows down and gets behind the gates.  

The large railway bridge that I thought we would be going under can be seen here.  The bridge in question I now think is actually over the River Don further on from Doncaster towards Sheffield.

I set up the locks to leave at 1200 and as I walked back to the boat I saw another narrowboat coming our way.  We let them go first and nb Success seemed pleased enough to be locked through without getting of the boat.

Much of this area is very rural and there are plenty of walkers, cyclists and runners about.  Now and again the passersby close the gates for us to save mooring up for a second time.

Many of the locks have the old handspike paddles.  Luckily many of them also have the usual winding gear for the paddles.  The locks are getting a little on the short side but we manage to get two boats in together so far. 

We were going to moor for the night at Horbury Bridge.  Its claim to fame is that Onward Christian Soldiers was written here as a marching song for children. However there seems to be an angling contest going on.  Tim gets along side but I thought that rather than annoy the anglers by making them move I decided it was politic to carry on for a while.

Close to the bridge there are a number of warehouse businesses and one of them sells flooring.  I will call here on the way back to pick up something to cover the the living area in the boat.  The carpet is not very practical.  Now and again I need to be inside in a hurry and its impossible to keep it clean.  Wood is the thing I think.

The Figure of Three locks get their name - it is said - from the fact that the river nearby makes three turns that look like the figure 3.  If that is the case I would have thought that there would be an awful lot more with the river forever meandering its way down. When we arrived the Scouts narrowboat - Be Prepared - was coming down with a trainee at the helm.

The locks are paired with a pound in-between and this will allow two lots of boats to use it at the same time and pass in the middle.

We have started to find large rafts of weed covering the canal from side to side.  I will have to check the weed hatch at some stage.  A burst of astern has cleared the weed from the rudder area so far.

Mill Bank Lock is the first that I had problems with.  A 60 foot boat has some trouble going into a 59 foot lock.  This meant that I had to go in solo and with the bows in the centre of the top gates and swing the stern behind the lower gates.  There wasn't room to get a second boat in.

A lot of care needs to be taken with a number of these locks.  With the sluice being in the gates if one is not mindful the open sluice dumps the water straight into the bows.  A number of boats have been sunk by this over the years.

The lock gates are old and heavy with the winders taking a bit of effort to wind the sluices up.  Pressure of water creates enough friction to make it hard work.

The end of the line for us tonight is the Dewsbury Arm which is under the concrete bridge on the right.  Huddersfield is through another pair of locks to the left.

As soon as I was moored I took a look at the lock to see if it was going to be another solo locking.  It might fit but we will have to wait and see.

Stanley Ferry to Calder Grove

I took a walk around the basin first thing this morning and photographed the aqueduct.

Wkikpedia - Stanley Ferry Aqueduct was built between 1836 and 1839 to take the Aire and Calder Navigation over the River Calder. It is one of the earliest compression arch suspended-deck bridges in the world and is considered to be the largest aqueduct executed in cast iron.

Designed by George Leather and built by H. McIntosh, the aqueduct has a span of 50.3 metres (165 ft), a width of 7.3 metres (24 ft) and a depth of 2.6 metres (8.5 ft). It is still in use today, though an additional wider concrete aqueduct was constructed alongside in 1981 and the bridge was then renovated.

There are plenty of old converted barges all the way up from Ferrybridge.  This one is for sale if you are interested :-)

The large brick building on the left is the restaurant and behind it is a boatyard.  The large white building is the BW workshop.

Pennine Waterways News - Newlay Locks on the outskirts of Leeds have just had a new set of gates fitted, as part of British Waterways' annual winter maintenance programme, at a cost of £300,000

As the Grade II Listed Newlay Locks are a three-rise lock staircase, one of several along the eastern part of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, this means that there were four pairs of new gates to be craned into place!

The new gates were made at BW’s Stanley Ferry workshop near Wakefield. As well as the new gates, work at the locks includes repairs to the floor of the entrance to the lock and replacement of the cills and quoins. The timber planking to the floor of the middle chamber will also be renewed as well as grouting to the walls of the bottom chamber to prevent leakage.

The old lock gates, which have been in operation at Newlay for over 25 years, will be recycled and reused for other projects. BW had to rescue and relocate fish and crayfish from the lock chambers before they could be completely drained.

And thats why we are going towards Sowerby Bridge.  With luck we may help in the Hebden Bridge Towpath Tidy.

You see all sorts of things travelling along.  These people believe in having all the comforts of home - even on the roof :-)

It doesn't take long to get to Wakefield.  This is Fall Ing Lock.  Well it is at the bottom.  At the top it is Fall Ings Lock. Perhaps they only had enough paint for one S.

We moored up for an hour shortly after the lock so that I could have a wander.  Mainly so that I could Twitter Sur le pont Wakefield. The stone bridge was built soon after 1342 and replaced an earlier bridge over the River Calder.  The packhorse bridge was added in 1730.  The Chantry Chapel of St Mary was built between 1342 and 1356 is one of only four surviving in England.

On one side there are the older faces

On the other side the faces have been renewed and look as though they represent real people from the history of Wakefield.

The saints are in the niches at each corner and includes Sts James, Oswald, Christopher and Botolph.  Patron saints of travellers in some form or other.

The nice thing is that the chapel is still in use with a service held on the first Sunday of each month.

Out through the flood lock and away from Wakefield.  For the next couple of hours we hopped from river to canal and back again.  There are lots of locks but in the main they are paired with a flood lock that is generally open.

Castleford to Stanley Ferry

Leaving the mooring at Castleford one passes the Hargreaves yard and in the background can be seen The Griffin pub.  Only slightly less stars than The Jolly Miller as we left at a respectable hour.  The beer is good and the locals very friendly.  What more could one ask for.

Reaching the access to the crossroads with the river and weir to the left (it is not a good idea to go this way), Wakefield is straight on and Leeds to the right.  Straight on for us this time as there are a series of locks out of use just the other side of Leeds that halts our progress in this direction.

On the way out you pass one of the old waterways building that now look as though it could stand a bit of TLC.

Soon we come across a boat yard with a number of interesting boats outlines.  One or two look quite ancient.

Just before the disused Fairies Hill lock is the unloading wharf for the ballast that has been passing us for days is dropped off.  At this point there is a mud bar that reaches quite a way out into the river and I found it!!

Here I am. Aground. Bugger.  The bows would move.  The stern would move but midships just sat there.  Tim came alongside and found the bar as well but with bit of a shove he went back into the middle of the river.  Passed a rope and he had to pull me till I was 90 degrees to the bank before I was free.

Shortly after the grounding the entry into the canal comes into sight and the likelihood of meeting one of the big boys drops considerably. :-) 

The mooring for the night is not far from the Stanley Ferry aqueduct. As you pass over the aqueduct there are signs that says " Do not obstruct the aqueduct or moor here".  For some reason there is a widebeam moored right at the end and there is only a foot or so spare for a narrowboat.  I guess you could use the new aqueduct but I had another boat coming through it and kept out of his way. Next to the aqueduct is The Stanley Ferry.  A very popular eatery and with two meals for £6 I understand why.  Italian chicken went down well.  The local pub wasn't as friendly as some I have been in but the beer was Ok.

The mooring for the night is just below the Ramsden Footbridge which replaced the swingbridge which is still in situ but rarely used by the look at it. Tim is still trying to get his phone to work due to the glass being cracked and the message 'Insert SIM card' coming up all the time.