Four kinds of bottom gates

 Monday 14^th August; Ditchford to Islip Dave

It had rained overnight, was raining as we got up and was forecast on and off for the rest of the morning.  In a short clear spell, Dave took Meg for a walk around the lake, though it did rain on and off.  When he got back it was dry again, so I abandoned the cleaning and we made ready to move.  We left about 11, in intermittent sunshine.  We were lucky at the first lock, Ditchford, that a narrowboat was just leaving so the top gates were ready and we could go straight in.  This was especially lucky as the weed boat was moored on part of the landing stage and would have made access very difficult.

Rather than the normal guillotine, Ditchford lock has a radial gate, the only one on the river.  With a boat already waiting on the landing below, I couldn’t keep stopping and starting for the sake of photographs, so this was taken with one hand while I had the thumb of the other on the ‘raise’ button.  Dave’s camera was somewhere inside the boat and he couldn’t leave the tiller and centre line.

With a cruiser waiting on the landing stage below, I opted to climb down the ladder, and decided to use this method in future (where possible) as it’s much quicker than having to wait while Dave battles the wind trying to pick me up.  The next lock, Higham Ferrers, looked peculiar to start with – then we realised it had pointing gates at the bottom instead of a guillotine gate.  With this kind of lock you aren’t required to empty it and raise the guillotine, so it was ready for us with open top gates too – you are allowed to leave either set of gates open if you choose.  The river passes under some very pretty old bridges – in this case the modern replacement carries the A6 across the river not far away.

We had lunch at the EA Irthlingborough mooring before carrying on down Irthlingborough lock, which had a ‘normal’ guillotine bottom gate.  The wind was now pretty strong and Dave asked for both top gates to be opened for him to bring Bonjour in, even though we normally fit perfectly well through one - the landings are often offset by some distance from the entrance, some even round a corner, and the wind was making getting the correct angle for entry very difficult.

At Upper Ringstead we encountered our first wheel-operated guillotine, the fourth kind for today.  The instructions are quite clear, though the mechanism on some locks is very stiff and difficult to operate.  It took a while for me to twig that when you have lowered the guillotine, you have to physically lock the wheel to stop the gate rising a bit of its own accord – so if you open the top paddles the water just rushes through and the lock won’t fill! 

The hole on the wheel must be positioned so the bolt can be pushed through – and then you hold in the key, which I had foolishly taken out, and turn it to lock the bolt in place.  I got there in the end, filled the lock and in came Bonjour.

Both top gates open at Upper Ringstead

We had hoped to stop for the night on the Woodford FOTRN mooring, but there is a partial bank collapse and Dreamcatcher, which had passed us at lunchtime was already there.  We tried, but couldn’t get in close enough for Meg to be able to get off, and we ended up going on for far longer than we wanted to.  There were two more gates with wheel-operated guillotines, and my arms were so tired at the last, Denford, that Dave climbed up the ladder to give me a hand.

We pulled onto the Islip Dave FOTRN mooring at about 6.  It’s quite rough ground here, and the edge is a bit wavy but ok, and the vegetation has been kept reasonably short by volunteers.  There is no way to get out from this spot, except by water, but as Meg had had such a good walk this morning that wasn’t a problem.  There was supposed to be a wasp's nest here, marked by a mooring pin, but we saw no sign of it.  It’s quiet and the view from the side hatch is lovely.

11½ miles, 7 locks, a long day