Overnight the temperature had not dropped as much As the previous few days and so we awoke still feeling rather soaked and a bit drained! Outside it was a little fresher for a while until the sun overcame the coolness of a steady breeze.
We were away from our overnight mooring before half past seven but only went a couple of hundred metres along to the water and elsan points at the far end of the park.
Although there are plenty of bollards along here, we are sure whether ithe immediate distat is really intended for overnight mooring. Since we were the only boat here it mattered not but we sort of recall that on one of our previous visits we had to make do with being right of the downstream end of this section. The next part is definitely No Mooring at all. The water point is just visible at the far end!
Wellingborough has long been a location for flour milling. The oldest building is just before our mooring and opened in 1886 by the Whitworth Brothers. At that time milling was generally a local business with little market outside the area that horse drawn carts could cover. The mill was named Victoria Mill and stands next to the junction between the A45 and A509.
In 1905, Frank George joined the firm as an apprentice and rose up the tree until he was running the mill for the Whitworth family. When the Brothers retired in the 1920s they sold the business to Frank, grandfather to the current chairman. The company expanded modestly but big changes came in 1997 when the firm built its second plant. This is the one opposite our mooring (for those with proper hearing, ventilation runs night as well as day! Staff were already arriving when we were ready to leave and we could see a truck already being unloaded.
The commitment to innovation remains at the heart of the business today and in the past three decades has grown from 1% of the UK market to nearly a third with a number of mills located around the country in the best wheat growing areas. A third mill was added tom the Wellingborough complex in 2012. The company now have a range of different flours (including some specially for making chapattis) some of it driven by the way in which food manufacturing has evolved, particularly interested in longer shelf lives. (see here for much more detail on the company's history)
The first lock of the day was Lower Wellingborough. Like the one before the town, this is a double pointy lock.
However, this one is distinctive in have the mechanism to raise and lower both bottom gate slackers together.
Chester House Estate opened to the public in 2021 after we last visited here. It now has a good landing stage if anyone wishes to visit by boat. Today, the estate is owned by North Northampton Council after it was bought as the basis of a living museum in 2004. It houses ARC, the Archaeology Research Centre taking advantage that the farm had failed (selling of the family silver as it were) and left some important historical sites undeveloped. The farm had especially used the regular winter flooding to grow good quality hay. To enable the site to be open freely to the public, it also runs a number of events and other educational activities. (see)
We passed under the electrified main line - the part that runs through Northampton - and we noted that at some stage it evolved from two to four tracks, with the expansion using a viaduct of different design. This is now the only route our of several through Northampton that once served the area.
The viaduct across the riverside meadow has fourteen arches - too many to get into one picture!
Ditchford Lock is also unusual and has the only radial bottom gate on the river. As it is lifted it rotates and so has a much lower supporting structure than the simple guillotine gates.
Alongside the control box a range of wild flowers was flourishing despite the hot weather.
Poppies always make an attractive picture . . . (unless growing in Flanders Field)
The next section if the river is naturally rather winding but there are some straight sections. The bends can be rather tight at times - something Mike forgot at one point when looking back to take a photo and missed seeing a new overhanging branch that did its best to remove his hat. Luckily a speedy reaction prevented it falling into the river!
At least one straight is human made. The OS maps from a century ago show a route that runs closer to Higham Ferrers and once had a significant wharf along it. And then came along the conversion of the A6 into a fast dual carriageway. For perhaps half a mile, the river was made straight to follow the new road.
The current OS map shows a puzzle for non-local walker: suddenly the marking for the towpath takes a sharp turn to the east and goes around a large loop, returning to the river just before the next lock. At the point of departure there is this high level footbridge (and a similar one seen in the distance over the road) The bridge is known in some lists as Wharf Road Footbridge, a reminder of what once lay in that direction
We were a little delayed at Higham Ferrers Lock as a boat was tied up on the all-too-short upper lock landing with two men looking a but unsure what to do. As we came alongside we heard that they had broken down with the engine seriously overheating. One of them has had the boat for three years but he has not had it out for at least the past two. Their lock operation and boat handling knowledge was somewhat scanty - they then said that they wanted to come down the lock with us as they preferred to moor below the lock. They asked if we knew what might be the cause! We might know a lot about the theory but practicality is another matter . . . As it was not a new boat (LTRU) we asked if they knew what the engine cooing system. Some older engines pump water from the river and back out straight away. (Modern boats use skin tanks) but the older system is prone to problems when the water becomes weedy, especially surface duck weed. The hot weather had stated to encourage it to grow quickly but it turned out that this was not a cause. We then asked about their engine oil level - Mike had checked ours yesterday and we are already on the lookout for a supplier (chandlery is not consistently available along the w hole river) but we are still above the minimum mark. We received somewhat conflicting responses but left them suggesting they contact the marina where they are headed to have the boat blacked.
A short distance later we came across this sign which puzzled us. We could see ahead a former railway bridge, now unused. But we could not see how going under a dodgy bridge slowly would help us if something fell off!
Safely through, there was no sign of any likely damage. But the we realised that there are three bridges close together. Could the sign be about another?
Next came the 1936 'new' A6 concrete bridge opened in 1936. It would be a bit of a disaster if they was falling down - although we did see that it has closed for a week recently for works to it. Trivia: the bridge was opened by Leslie Hore-Belisha, the eponymous Transport minister responsible for the famous pedestrian crossing.
And then another repeat sign but with a shorter distance. By a few centuries this was by far the oldest of the three bridges. It dates from 13C or 14C and was only bypassed because it was not large enough for modern traffic (even in 1930s) We soon discovered that the issue was nit about bits falling onto boats from wonky bridges, but the difficult turn that boats have to make to pass through the navigation arch. Whilst the sign advised boaters to slow down it gave no explanation about why but the state of the edges of the stonework around the arch suggests that quite a few unwary steerers have found the reason a bit too late! -
Soon we could see the long Irthlington mooring alongside what was once the home of a briefly famous football club: Rushden and Diamonds - completely empty. This was the minimum target for today and although we had only come through 3 locks, and it was only 10:45, we gave in and tied up. The next target after the lock immediately in view was a FOTRN members mooring. These are usually in quiet rural places but have no facilities, not even mooring bollards and the thought of having to hammer in pins in this heat did not appeal and so the mundane won the contest.
5.5 Miles - 3 Locks
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