Today’s forecast was for showers after lunch, so we got under way at just before 10… in a shower!
Dull and damp as we head towards Kingston
Kingston Bridges, rail then road.
We saw several of these cruise boats several times yesterday, but none were all that busy.
Near Thames Ditton Marina, I wonder where this goes?
A clue is the row of reservoirs on the bank above. Seething Wells, as the area is known, is the site of a ground-breaking waterworks, built in 1852 by the Lambeth Water Company. Cholera was rife in the city at the time, and the revolutionary filter beds, along with a cleaner source of water than that further downstream, helped with the defeat of the disease.
Needs masts…
Hampton Court Palace is on the right bank below Molesley Lock, and amazingly there were several spaces on the popular moorings outside.
The rain had eased by the time we got here, so our ascent of Molesley Lock was in the dry.
Leaving Molesley Lock
Despite the weather the lockie here was a happy chappie. He wasn’t rushed off his feet though. We were in on our own, and we’d only seen two other boats heading downstream in the last hour.
House boats along the river near Hampton
I wonder how much they change hands for?
The obligatory picture of Astoria if you’re a Pink Floyd fan. Built in 1911, she’s their recording studio!
Hampton, on the north bank. St. Mary’s church tower visible above the trees.
Boats have been built on Platt’s Eyot since 1868, when Thomas Tagg expanded his operations from Taggs Island, slightly further downstream.
Platt’s Eyot
A boatyard, house, waterworks and electrical charging station were built, the latter to charge battery-powered launches and canoes constructed in the yard.
During the two World Wars Thorneycroft built small naval craft here, motor torpedo boats, launches and landing craft. The facility is now owned and run by Port Hampton.
We had to wait for two narrowboats and and an inflatable to exit Sunbury Lock before we were ushered in by another jolly lock-keeper.
In Sunbury Lock, on our own, naturally…
Sunbury Lock House
We started to look for somewhere to moor, and couldn’t pass up the bit of bank outside The Weir pub, just at the end of the lock cut.
A pair of Egyptian geese came to tap us up for a bit of lunch…
The male is the one in the mask!
Thanks for the kind comments, Linda and Chas. KevinToo, we will, we will!
Locks 2, miles 8
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