We enjoyed our partial rest day and stopover in Northampton Marina last night - but today had to pay for it. More later!
The marina is built as an island, surrounded by a narrow strip of land. It is perhaps the only marina on the network that does not have any vehicular access. Moorers and staff have to gain entrance over a short footbridge from the town side. The bridge is gated and when we arrived we had to exchange a deposit for a fob - which we never actually needed to use. But we had to wait until the office opened at 9 am to return it and regain our £10. However, Mike used the hour before that to do the usual round of emptying and filling.
Just before 9:30 we reversed rom the visitor mooring and turned to face the exit. Directly opposite is one of the main buildings of the University of Northampton. When we last came here in 2018 this new campus was just being made ready to receive its first students in the coming September.
This university has a complex and intriguing history, albeit with a centuries' long gap. Henry III founded England's third university, after Oxford and Cambridge, in 1261. However powerful bishops and businessmen reacted badly to the competition (no doubt they had well rooted powerful control over the other two) and persuaded Henry to close it after only four years. In addition he signed a decree that no university should be created in Northampton - for ever!
A Technical College came along in 1924 followed by a college of art and teacher training school. Non degree tertiary education never took off in the wat that pioneers in the 1960s envisaged. The institution evolved into a University College with its credentials validated by Leicester University. In 1999 it became a university in its own right but only after the Privy Council had repealed King Henry's decree!
This long evolution meant that it was based somewhat higgledy-piggledy on several locations in town but in 2012 plans were agreed to focus on a waterside site that was once home to a large power station.
So now we left the marina behind us.
We had to cruise a short distance upstream along what is a weir stream to return to the main navigation channel.
This then required us to make an almost 360 degree turn to enter Northampton Lock. This and the next two have the familiar arrangement of 'pointing doors' at both ends.
What is different is that the standard procedure is to leave open the gates as you leave, either top or bottom.
University Bridge is one of several important access routes into and out of the new university campus, It was nearly complete when we came by in 2018.
A largeish craft could be seen a little way along a bywater. In the past it was called The Ark and developed a good reputation locally as a quality restaurant. That business seem snow to have ceased a and has been replaced by another eatery called The Smoke Craft. (see) It specializes in dishes with a BBQ flavour.
The section of the river below the town and before the Washlands follows a very green corridor where the sunlight sometimes, even today, struggles to reach the water!
Soon after Abington Lock is a large structure that houses a sluice gate that can be raised in times of flooding. It is an important reminder that much of the work on maintaining the river navigation is motivated (and funded) in its role as a water management system.
The style of the locks changes visually at Weston Favell Lock - the bottom gate is a single guillotine gate raised by a large mechanism that is often visible some distance away. Operationally the impact is that now the bottom gate is always left open, regardless of the direction of boat travel. It will always be in the same state whether another boat has recently come up or not.
This lock and all the others today is mechanised - we have yet to discover how many of the manual ones we vividly recall from previous visits remain so. The controls have interlocks with the top gates and we had a slight delay at one lock until we realised that one top paddle had not properly wound down!
Just below the lock is a fairly small Northampton Boat Club where it looks as if each mooting coms with its own bijou house on stilts.
The very large Billing Aquadrome sits alongside a comparably named lock. It has been home to a huge number of mobile homes and caravans, both static and touring. It is a permanent home to over 1000 people. It has seemed to gradually lose its sparkle and become somewhat dated a in 2024 it went into administration, seeking new capital investment. It has remained open and was then joined by the Cogenhoe Caravan Park just downstream (but see below) Billing still seems to not want any passing trade as its river entrance is quite hard to pick out!
The next lock is Cogenhoe and we recall ti (see here) as a busy, vibrant place and we could hardy believe the change - nothing at all beside the lock.
It seems that last year the caravan park closed after a series of serious flooding incidents and arrangements made to transfer at least some of the residents across to Billing Aquadrome. Today all that is to be seen are some of the hookup points and concrete bases to pitches. Nature is quickly reclaiming it as her own.
From the footbridge below Whiston Lock we could see nearby lakes - a common sight in this valley. However, the odd thing is that they do not seem to appear on any of our maps - we wonder if either they have been newly created or are perhaps occasional, even if the flood season is well past.
Having now done 8 locks and the sun gaining in strength - it was well after lunch time - we succumbed to the signs alongside While Mills Marina, offering bankside mooring at £6 and night. After calling to confirm that this was OK (we have to pay online using a QR code on the sign) we set about tying up. We had reached the bank with our stern but yet to come parallel. Of course there are no posts or bollards so pins it is. The problem next was that, firstly, the stream flow and the wind had taken the bow across to the other bank. and secondly that at an earlier lock, a complication had left both centre lines at the front so we had no way of pulling the boat in from the bank. Mike had to crawl alog the top roof to retrieve one of them.
Having done that we could not now get the stern anywhere near as close to the bank as before and so we needed the gangplank - also well down the roof! In the process of manoeuvring it to the stern Mike somehow caught the tab that inflates his life jacket. At first he could only hear a gentle hiss and did not connect it to what was around his neck until there was a loud bang and the yellow innards expanded to make him into an imitation of Michelin Man (if you can remember that)
Anyway, we eventually made the best of the location and were secure enough for the night. Only one other boat came down and stopped briefly before turning around and returning to Billing.
7.3 Miles - 8 Locks
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