Back to Boroughbridge

We said our goodbyes to the folk at Ripon Racecourse Marina this morning. They’ve made us welcome, offering advice for the return passage down the Ure and Ouse with a bit more water on than when we came up.
Meg had also made friends with a couple of black spaniels, Megan and Milly. They looked awfully sad as we prepared to leave…

Megan and Milly

We left them sitting on the jetty.

Out of the marina, we had a bit of a farewell committee to see us off.


If you’ve ever up here, it’s worth coming in to stay a few days. Pat, the manager, is very helpful, and the natives are friendly.



We pulled out of the entrance, onto the sun-dappled Ripon Canal. We’d had quite a bit of rain yesterday, so weren’t quite sure whether we’d be able to drop down Oxclose Lock onto the river. We’d emptied and filled all the relevant tanks so if we needed to wait out a bit of high water we could.

Sunny after the rain on the Cut
The canal was effectively closed  in 1906, and officially abandoned in 1956, although the river navigation remained open. Efforts by The Ripon Canal Company Ltd, formed mainly from the membership of the Ripon Motor Boat Club, saw the navigation restored to Littlethorpe in 1986, and the final section to the town basin re-opened ten years later. The marina we’ve just left was completed in 1999.


I checked the water level indicator below Oxclose Lock, and it was still well in the amber zone, “Proceed with care”. So we chose to drop down and review the situation again at Boroughbridge.







Mags waits patiently for me to open the bottom gates of the lock.
And waits…. and waits. There was a lot of water coming in over the top sill, preventing the lock from draining completely. Just an inch of water prevented me from shifting the gates at all. After much pushing and shoving, and quite a bit of swearing, I decided that a more technical solution was in order, so used a long rope to make up a Spanish Windlass and winched the thing open!

The river was running fairly fast, but nothing we couldn’t cope with. On the wide sections the stream was hardly noticeable, but we were pushed along handily on the narrow bits.

Out on the River Ure

We had thought about stopping over to visit Newby Hall on the way back, but with the river being a little unpredictable decided to give it a miss this time. We’ve been there several times by road, to car shows in one of my classic Riley motor cars.

Newby Hall

There were some visitors in the grounds.

Westwick Lock was better behaved than Oxclose, we were through it easily heading down to Boroughbridge two miles further downstream.

Surprisingly, we actually saw another boat on the water this afternoon, but he was only having a mooch upriver before turning and following us back to Boroughbridge.

Wow, another boat!
Heading into Milby Cut, the boom protecting the large weir on the right.

Apart from just a drop of rain soon after lunchtime, it's been fine and dry, but pretty blustery. If it stays like this all week it’ll be alright.

We’ll be moving on tomorrow, maybe pushing through to York, or breaking the journey at Linton. We’ll see how we feel.
Mag’s sister, Dot, is coming to see us on Friday, so meeting at York would be good. It’s Mag’s birthday then, but I’m not saying how many candles there should be…. Just that we’d need a big cake!

Locks 2, miles 6¼

Busy Weekend

Last Friday we had a walk around Ripon, taking in the cathedral and finishing at Appleton’s the butchers for some proper sausage, proper bacon and a couple of cracking pork pies.

River Skell, Ripon Cathedral in the background

Like most large churches, Ripon Cathedral has undergone several phases of development and extension, the oldest part being a Saxon crypt dating from 672.

The East front

Angle of the North Transept and The Choir
Norman arches on the North Transept, Gothic on The Choir.

The early 13thC West Front is the impressive and awe-inspiring main entrance. 


Inside, the spectacular workmanship continues…

Looking down the Nave to the Choir and the High Alter

The screen behind the alter is decorated with representatives of past Bishops and the odd King

The organ sits between the Crossing and the Choir, the organist sitting high above the congregation.

The organ and organists seat, through the arch is the Crossing and the Nave

The carved screens around the Choir must have taken many hours of painstaking work.

Even the ceilings reflect the majesty of the building. In stone above the sides of the Choir…

…and in timber


Sometimes painted.
Then there’s the more delicate decorative feature of the stained glass.
 
Finally, the oldest part of the church lies beneath the Crossing.
St. Wilfrid’s Crypt dates from 672, and was probably created by Wilfrid to represent Christ’s tomb. It’s still a place of pilgrimage.


These buildings were designed to inspire awe and reflect the glory of God, they got it right here. I could have spent several hours just taking in the atmosphere of over 1200 years of worship, but we had to get back to the boat and move up to the marina, ready to collect a car from Enterprise for the weekend.

Looking back down Kirkgate from the West Front

With a smart Volkswagon Passat available, it seemed a shame not to go somewhere on Saturday, so we went off across the North York Moors, ending up at Whitby.

Neil and Val (and Meg) in front of the natural depression of the Hole of Horcum

Whitby was heaving, unsurprising on such a fine day.

Crab pots in the inner harbour

The outer harbour

The trip boats were doing a roaring trade, this is the retired RNLI lifeboat Ann Hepworth

The locals were on the lookout for scraps disposed from the fishing boats.

Yesterday we were on the road at 06:00, arriving at South Shields at around quarter past seven. I left Mags, Neil, Val and Meg there and caught the bus into Newcastle and the start line of the Great North Run.

The start zone is ¾ of a mile long, it has to be to accommodate 55,000 runners.


Even time for a bit of celebrity spotting.

Chris Chittell and Tony Audenshaw, stars of Emmerdale

Unfortunately the two headline athletes, Mo Farah and Haile Gebrselassie, had decided not to run after all, although Mo was on the start rostrum, high-fiving some of the thousands streaming past.

I’d already decided to take it easy this year, with the problems I’ve had with the ligaments in my left foot I didn’t want to risk having to drop out.
It was a close run thing though, the painkillers wore off by the end of mile three, I was limping by 9, and nearly packed it in then, but thought, what the hell, I’m nearly there, so pushed on to finish in a painful 2:04.

I hobbled back to join the rest of the gang, who had meanwhile been joined by another of Mags’ sons, Howard, and grand-daughters Melanie and Zoe, with their children Emma, Nichola, Demi and Kyle.

We set off back to Ripon and everyone else turned up shortly afterwards, much to Mag’s surprise and delight. I don’t think we’ve had eleven bodies on board before, it was a little cramped and I had to organise the seating arrangements or we were leaning quite a bit, but we had a really good, if somewhat noisy, afternoon.  Sorry no pictures. Much too busy.

Today has been a quiet day. Neil and Val went back to Ingleton with Howard last evening, so it’s been just us. A lie in this morning, then some shopping on the way to drop the car back to Harrogate. The coalman has delivered to the marina this afternoon, so we got four bags off him. The forecast is for a chillier week ahead, and the stove won’t stay in overnight on wood.

We’ll be heading out of the marina tomorrow, probably back to Boroughbridge. We’ll toddle off steadily south, spending a couple of days in York. When we reach Knottingley we’ll have a decision to make. Go west and take the Aire and Calder and the Huddersfield Canals over the Pennines, use the Leeds and Liverpool and then down towards Manchester, or retrace our journey back down the Trent. We’ll see…

Thanks everyone for your support and sponsorship for the race. It may be my last... bits are starting to wrong too often!

Locks 2, miles 1

Poised….

That’s it, kit all packed, carbo-loaded, everyone primed for an early wake-up call. I’ll be up at 04:45, we’ll be away at 06:00 heading for South Shields and the Great North Run. Mo Farah was to be joining me and 50-odd thousand others on the start line, but he’s bottled it, doing the 2 miler (and winning) today at Gateshead. So I’ll just have to chase World Record holder Haile Gabrselassie instead…. He’s probably got nothing to worry about!

Mo will be there, acting as starter.

By the time most of you read this I’ll be out there on the road, and I’d like to thank all of you who’ve  sponsored me. For those who haven’t, there’s still time. Just go to my justgiving page.

Bed time now.

End of the line.

We stayed put in Boroughbridge yesterday. The weather wasn’t very inspiring, and our guests arrived about lunchtime. So we’ve now got the “colonials” aboard, Mags’ son Neil and his wife Val, from Canada. We had a lot of catching up to do, they’ve not been over for a couple of years.

Me, Mags, Neil and Val

The mooring at Boroughbridge turned a bit grotty with the rain, muddy and slippery, not good with the path being so narrow. It’s a shame, the town looks to be very pleasant.

Leaving Boroughbridge

I took Meg for a walk and a look at the weir this morning, after the rain it is running quite well, and it has taken on a red-brown tinge from the peat washing down the many small tributaries up in the hills.

Boroughbridge Weir

Salmon ladder alongside for the spawning season

Looking downstream from the bridge

The bridge was fought over in 1322, when rebel forces under the Duke of Lancaster met Edward II’s troops. Lancaster was the leader of a group of nobelmen frustrated by Edward’s weak, ineffectual rule. He was Edward’s cousin, and, as such, had a tenuous claim to the throne. Lancaster had planned to meet Edward’s forces further south at Burton on Trent, but, outflanked and outnumbered he retreated north after a minor skirmish. Pursued by the King he arrived at the River Ure crossing here at Boroughbridge, only to find it defended by one of the King’s men, Sir Andrew Harclay.
Harclay’s force consisted of a mixed bag of archers and pikemen, around 4,000 men who vastly outnumbered Lancaster’s 700 cavalry. After an attempt at negotiation for passage failed, and with Edward pressing from the rear, the Duke had no choice but to try and force a crossing.
The battle was short, Lancaster being defeated and captured. He was imprisoned in his own castle at Pontefract and executed 6 days after the battle. Thirty of his followers met the same fate.

We went across to make use of the services, then headed off, under the original (or at least the site of the original) Great North Road Bridge.

Under what used to be the Great North Road till the by-pass was built.

A little further on we passed under the second GNRd bridge, built when the village was by-passed, then the current one, built when the road was upgraded.

Great North Road Bridges

In fact these were both built at the same time, the “second” one replacing an earlier one.

It was a cool morning, but the sun made fitful appearances, brightening things up. Didn’t do much for the temperature though, it struggled up to about 15°, but that was about it.

Two miles from Boroughbridge we came across the last of the river locks, at Westwick.

Weswick Lock, Neil and Val strategically placed

Peat-flavoured water coming in through the ground sluice

The locks get closer together as the waterway approaches Ripon, the next one is 1½ miles on and takes the navigation from natural channel to artificial cut.

Very pretty Oxclose Lock
Someone spends a lot of time keeping this nice.

The top gates have flaps in the walkways to go around the ground paddle stanchions when they are opened.

There are good moorings on the left above the lock, just a bit overhung with trees.

We’re now on the Ripon Canal, if you hadn’t realised before you would when you came to the next bridge, typically canal.

Rentons Bridge.

I didn’t take any pictures at Bell Furrows Lock, too busy talking to our local C&RT representative, Julie.

Rhodesfield Lock is the final one, and is within view of Bell Furrows. Neil took the boat into this one, under the watchful eye of Mags.

Into Rhodesfield Lock


These locks are only just big enough for a boat of our length. With bow and stern buttons we’re probably 59 feet long.


























Just below the lock is Lock House, presumably the lock-keeper’s or lengthsman’s house when the canal was cut. It looks well looked after, smart in fresh paint.

Lock House






 
A little further on, the building housing the sanitary station has the same Neo-Gothic architecture, this time in miniature.

It must have been built for another function, sanitary facilities were un-thought of in 1773…. There are a pair of chimney stacks rising from the rear roof.

Under the by-pass bridge, which is remarkably free of graffiti, and there’s a couple of hundred yards to the terminus in Ripon Basin.

By-pass bridge 
End of the line, Ripon Basin

We turned around and moored just behind the only other boat here, who promptly untied and left! That’s the second time that’s happened in three days!

Moored in Ripon

I would have liked to have a look around the town this afternoon, but it started to rain as soon as we’d tied up and didn’t let up till nearly 5 o’clock. We took advantage of the proximity of the Chinese takeaway and chippie for tea, very good it was too.

All being well we’ll have a mooch around tomorrow morning, before heading back down the first two locks and into Ripon Racecourse Marina for the weekend.

Locks 4, miles 7