THE Canal Village

Thursday, 11 December 2008 21:43

After a very late night last night we slept in a wee bit! Yesterday we marvelled that the ice finished as we crossed the "new" Grafton Road aqueduct at Stonebridge on the outskirts of Milton Keynes. Why did it just cease?

No ice this morning - hooray! Cosgrove lock was our first delight! We watered up below and I dealt with the lock. The Gothic style Solomon's Bridge, supposedly unique, is always worth a photograph! Still a slow connection - so none on the Blog today though, bah!

This bit of the canal is very rural with only the scattered farm and a couple of villages set back from it: namely Castlethorpe, Yardley Goblin and the very small Grafton Regis.

The main event of the day was the flight of 7 locks in the Stoke Bruerne flight, lifting the canal up 40 feet to the village of Stoke Bruerne. A dog walker passing by as I waited for the 6th lock (15), said hello - he had seen us in the summer when cruising on their boat and remembered the name! Distinctive eh! They moor at Stoke Bruerne. 

Stoke Bruerne is a real canal village built of local Blisworth stone. The buildings that front the canal above the top lock are now variously: a pub, a restaurant, a museum and cottages. How the old Boatmen would react to modern adaptations to warehouses etc one can only guess. They would be glad to see it was still a real canal centre and that there are traditional boats and sights still to be seen.

We moored a little way further on, more or less in the same place as when we came down in late October. We are surrounded by boats with Christmas lights on. There is a parade of boats on the 13th so they are all preparing. Shame we shall miss it.

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