Another day, another set of staircase locks…

We dropped down into Leeds today, a long day by our standards, about 4¼ hours. It’s not the distance, it's the locks that take the time. Two triple staircases, one double and four singles.

Yesterday we moved through Rodley passing 4 swing bridges, to moor at the top of Newlay Locks so we were ready for the CRT chap this morning.

A gloomy sort of day…


Rodley Swing Bridge.


Lots of people taking advantage of the dry day were up and down the towpath.

Boats on the moorings near Newlay include one with a heroic history.
Abbey Pride was one of the “Little Ships” that crossed the channel to rescue the remains of the British Expeditionary Force and French and Belgian forces as part of Operation Dynamo.


Moored above Newlay Staircase Locks.

We moved down in the afternoon to avoid having to do the four bridges first thing this morning. The booking was for 09:00 so we’d have had to get going at a quarter to eight, in the dark! I wouldn’t recommend overnight mooring here in the summer though. To the right is Bramley Park, very popular with the residents of the housing estates which flank the canal. It can be very busy here in fine weather. Below the locks on the right is a meadow know locally as “Bramley Beach”, where the locals gather on warm evenings for barbecues and parties.

In Newlay Locks at 09:15.
  

In the wing-wall of the middle chamber there’s a series of holes in the pointing between the masonry blocks, each one surrounded by a mesh of cobwebs.



I’m only guessing, but I think it’s a wasp or hornet’s nest in the wall. The spiders have laid traps for those unfortunate insects that don’t make a clean entrance or exit.







Slightly leaky gates but not as bad as those at Bingley!


Below Newlay Locks, Darren the CRT man is just closing up behind us before setting off to meet us at Forge Three, half a mile further down.

“Bramley Beach” below the locks.


Darren dropped us down Forge Three, the second triple staircase, then we had another ½ mile to Kirkstall Lock where we met Darren for the final time. This top group of locks is padlocked to prevent tampering, so have to be booked in the winter.

Forge Three


Kirkstall Abbey, just visible through the mist hanging over the Aire Valley

Waiting for Darren at Kirkstall Lock


The city starts to encroach upon the route of the canal below Kirkstall Lock.

Kirkstall Brewery, alongside the canal, is now student accommodation for Leeds University. 

There’s a 2½ mile break from the locks through Kirkstall and Armley, passing the Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mill


Lots of rivets hold Armley Railway Bridge together as it crosses the canal at an angle.



Built around 1846 by the Leeds and Bradford Railway, it later became part of the Midland Railway network. It used to carry four tracks, reduced to two during the Beeching cuts of the 1960s.



There’s a single lock at Spring Gardens, Oddies Double Staircase Locks, St Ann Ings Lock alongside the residential development of City Island, then finally Office Lock just above Granary Wharf. All within the last mile.

We saw this floating shed up at Skipton a couple of years ago…

Oddies Double Staircase, lots of water in the canal here.

St. Ann Ing Lock with the high-rise City Island on the left.


Looking over at the Aire.


Almost exactly three years ago the river rose to the underside of the suspension footbridge, overtopped the towpath wall and flooded the canal. We were moored in Granary Wharf at the time…

Mags coming out of Office Lock.


If it wasn’t for help from the group of spectators on the lockside, I’d never had got the bottom gates open. So much water is coming over the top gates that it wouldn’t quite make a level.

Moored up in Granary Wharf


We’ll decide tomorrow whether to drop down out of Leeds or take a day off. It was a heavy day today…
Locks 12, miles 7

A much better day now the rain’s stopped!

It rained yesterday, And rained, and rained some more. We stayed put. After three damp days cruising we took yesterday off.
The sky cleared later, the temperature dropped and we had a hard frost.

Stiff ropes this morning!


We were only 200 yards from the top of Field Three Locks, a triple staircase, and Mags stayed inside till I’d got the levels set up. The top chamber has to be full, the middle one half full and the bottom one empty, else there’s not enough water to get over the cills between the chambers, or so much that it’s wasted, overflowing the gates.

Coming down a frosty Field Three.

Care was needed on the icy lock-sides… Although the sun was up the flight was in the shade.

Below the locks the trees still kept the sun off until the first swing bridge.

Heading for a patch of sun.


It’s probably more psychological than physical but it certainly felt warmer in the sun…


Two swing bridges later we arrived at the top of Dobson Locks where we filled with water and dumped rubbish. Ninety minutes later (it’s a very slow tap) we were dropping down these double staircase locks, once again in the shade with slippery cobbles.

Meg kept the locals amused while we filled with water…

Millman Swing Bridge is below the locks, and I always dread this one. Nearly 2 years ago, in January 2016, it died on me in the closed position with the barriers down. It’s a busy bridge, used by the locals to avoid the traffic lights on the main road. The short-cut bit them in the bum that time, it was 45 minutes before the CRT man arrived to fix it!
Today though it behaved itself like a gentleman. Might be something to do with the controls being re-sited to the towpath.

Leaving Millman Swing Bridge with a sigh of relief.


The canal runs past the village of Apperley Bridge, and I pulled in alongside the main road bridge to nip up to Asda for some last minute fresh stuff. Then we pushed on for another 35 minutes, tying up just past Calverley Lodge Swing Bridge.

It’s going to be another cold one tonight.

It’s the big day tomorrow, so I’d like to wish all our readers, boaters and land-bound alike, a Very Happy Christmas. Have a good one, don’t drink too much…

Locks 5, miles 3½

Damper than expected but we had some fine rainbows…

We’d planned to move today and take the forecasted wet and windy Sunday off. But it was raining first thing and only cleared up for short intervals through the rest of the day.

But needs must as they say, so we were off and dropping down Dowley Gap Locks by just after 10.

Dowley Gap double Staircase Locks




Dowley Gap is the narrow pass between the bulk of Baildon Moor to the north and Norr Hill to the south. The River Aire uses it as a natural route to the west, but now it’s also occupied by the Shipley to Keighley railway, the busy A650 dual carriageway, and of course the canal.

It’s here that the canal crosses the river as well, on the seven-arch aqueduct designed by James Brindley and constructed by John Longbottom.

Over the Aire




You’ll notice that the towpath has swapped sides as well. They were quite cunning, these canal engineers. If the canal is cut into the side of a hill or valley as in this case, the towpath is nearly always on the downslope side. The fill removed from the cut is used to build up the lower slope and the towpath built on top. This means that less material has to be shifted. Clever, eh.

It’s about twenty minutes from here to Hirst Mill lock and Swing Bridge. No photos, it had started to rain again. But it provided us with a series of rainbows as we passed through Saltaire between Salt’s Mill and New Mill.






Bradford was Titus Salt’s original base of operations, where he ran five textile mills and was the largest employer in the town. He became mayor in 1848 and took it upon himself to improve the lot of the mill-workers. He attempted to bring in measures to control pollution and smog, to increase the low life-expectancy of the inhabitants, but in the end decided to consolidate his operation in a new, purpose built mill alongside the canal at the edge of Shipley.
Along with the workplace, Salt built a workers village, with bathhouses, an institute, hospital and churches. A devout Christian, he wanted to improve conditions for his workforce, but there were also sound economic reasons for the investment. With a degree of hubris, he called the development Saltaire…

The offside moorings at Shipley are good, and we’ve never had any trouble there. (It’s raining again…)
 

Junction Bridge and Junction Mills stand next to the entrance to the long-derelict Bradford Canal.





The Bradford Canal was opened in 1774, rising through 10 locks over 3½ miles from it’s junction with the newly-finished Leeds and Liverpool Canal Shipley section. It’s primary cargo was limestone, shipped from Skipton to waiting lime-kilns in Bradford for the production of lime mortar for building. It closed in 1922 and has been mostly built over.

The recently refurbished and mechanised Dock Swing Bridge is shortly after the junction, then follow two more manual bridges before the top of Field Three Locks. It’s here we called it a day.


We had intended to drop down this triple staircase and pass two more swing bridges to take us to the top of Dobson Locks, but frankly we’d had enough.

It’s likely we’ll stay put here tomorrow, with the forecast looking a bit grim.

Locks 3, miles 4½

A longer shortest day and a schoolboy mistake…

We set off this morning in drizzly rain. We’d hoped that the sky would have cleared by the time we were ready to go, but the trip to the top of Bingley Locks turned out to be a damp one.

We had four swing bridges to pass through, three of them mechanised and carrying roads, the last just a light footbridge used to access the Airedale Boat Club moorings.

Low cloud hangs on the hills as we approach Morton Swing Bridge

Moorings at Hainsworth’s Boatyard at Bingley.

A gloomy Aire valley at the top of the locks.

We’d arrived with plenty of time in hand before our scheduled passage down the locks, so had an early lunch.

Just after one o’clock there was a knock on the boat – “Ready when you are” said the chap from CRT. The rain had stopped by this time, but I suggested that Mags stay inside anyway as we dropped down.

Into the top lock at 13:12


Some pics as we headed down…


The 5-Rise Locks drop the canal nearly 60 feet, so each chamber is an impressive 12 feet deep.

A trad stern is better than a cruiser stern coming down here!



The classic shot from the bottom as we leave the 5-Rise heading for it’s little brother, the 3-Rise.

Top of the 3-Rise. Our CRT elf now has a companion…
That’s the Damart factory on the left.

The chambers on this staircase flight are slightly shallower at just under 10 foot each.

Water spout from the cill on the middle lock.


That’s the lot, top of the 5 to bottom of the 3 in an hour and twenty minutes.



Another 20 minutes and we were tied up a quarter mile above the next locks at Dowley Gap.

Now, the schoolboy mistake. I was busy taking pictures as we descended one of the five instead of watching what was happening. We drifted back towards the top gates – and you’ve guessed it – got hooked up on the cill! Not badly, but enough to lock the tiller as the rudder took the weight of the boat. I shouted to the lockie and he quickly closed the paddles so we didn’t drop any further, then slowly put some water back in to lift us clear again. Panic over and no damage done, but it shows how easily it can happen, especially in these short locks.
First time for us, and it had to happen with a CRT lockie in attendance. I bet he thought I was a right muppet…

On to moor above Dobson Locks tomorrow.

Locks 8, miles 4