Emma's Blog: Weekend out on Ray's boat

Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 July

Ruth and I joined Ray on his boat for a bit of a pootle down (actually, pedantically, up) the canal. The boat had been in the dry dock near Newbury marina for the week prior, having some repairs done and also for Ray to have a chance to do some painting of the underside. On the Friday evening he collected the boat and moored up overnight by Greenham Lock, where we walked over to meet him on the Saturday morning. The plan was to have a leisurely meander back to his mooring at Kintbury, stopping overnight on the way.

Leaving the mooring upstream of Greenham Lock

The walk from Newbury station to Greenham Lock made me wonder whether Greenham Lock Cottage was still standing. A friend of Mum’s lived there in the 1970s with her husband and two children and I remember going over there to visit them more than once. If I remember correctly, the cottage was accessed by a footbridge from the town side though I assume there must have been vehicle access, albeit looking at the site on Google Maps I can’t see where this would have been. I’m sure I remember there being an access bridge more or less opposite the cottage, plus a shakier-looking footbridge a bit upstream of it. However, memory being what it is, who the hell knows at this stage.

I asked the Facebook group ‘Memories of Newbury and West Berkshire’ whether anyone knew whether the cottage had been demolished – certainly I couldn’t see it, but the whole area has changed so much with the creation of the marina that I can’t really get my bearings. One chap replied saying that its site was the red rectangle on this Google Earth view:

This Heritage Gateway page states that:

The core of the cottage at Greenham Lock is of probable 18th century date, with a succession of later additions. The property was proposed for demolition and replacement with a new dwelling, and as part of the planning conditions, Historic Building Recording was carried out in January 2014 by Lang Hall Archaeology. The report concluded that the modern 'periodising' features have obscured the principal dating evidence and that only the core cottage is of any architectural or historic value.

Though the building is adjacent to Greenham Lock on the Kennet and Avon Canal (formerly the Kennet Navigation), it is unclear whether it was historically a lock keeper's cottage. The First Edition Ordnance Survey mapping of 1880-81 appears to label this as a boat house.

It clearly wasn’t still a lockkeeper’s cottage by the 1970s, if it ever was, as Mum confirmed that her friend’s husband had worked for Honeywell and had nothing to do with the canals.

Further searching confirms that the cottage was indeed demolished, and a new build erected in its place. Greenham Construction lists the New GLC among its portfolio of work (with some inaccuracies – it’s not in the centre of Newbury; there’s possibly some confusion with the lock cottage at Newbury Lock, which was indeed in the centre of Newbury, though it was demolished in the 1980s. It sounds as though GLC might have lasted a bit longer). Here’s a more extensive blurb re the construction of the new property: LOCK KEEPERS COTTAGE, SUSTAINABLE REPLACEMENT DWELLING ON AN ISLAND SITE, which includes the following:

The historic canal-side cottage was much loved by the local community and those travelling along the Kennet & Avon Canal, but in reality, it was flood-prone and uncomfortable to live in.

As a child, I remember having mixed views on it. It was certainly quite excitingly unusual to access someone’s house via a footbridge. If I remember correctly, the amendments made to it included a 70s-style slatted staircase leading up from the middle of the living area to the bedrooms; I remember that there was an additional back staircase, presumably the original. I can’t say I ever hankered after living there. As a child I determinedly favoured nice modern houses that weren’t by dark bodies of water, a preference that it’s fair to say I still have in adulthood.

Passing Newbury Wharf

We set off, passing Newbury Wharf. Ray bemoaned that recent redevelopments at the wharf have not included any boaters’ facilities; there are none between Kintbury and Aldermaston which given the increasing popularity of narrowboats seems a bit ridiculous. We passed under the little 18th-century Town Bridge.

Approaching Town Bridge

Some volunteers were manning Newbury Lock so we didn’t have to do the gates ourselves. The next obstacle after the lock is the swing bridge at West Mills. Operation of this is intended to be a simple matter of turning the key in the lock and then pressing and holding a button to open and close the bridge. Opening it went fine, and Ray took the boat through and moored up just past the bridge. Closure wasn’t quite so smooth: I kept my finger down until the bridge had got itself back in position and the level crossing-style gates had started to lift, then took it off, carelessly assuming that they’d make it the rest of the way up by themselves. Unfortunately they didn’t and stopped where they were. The handful of pedestrians who’d started forward to cross the bridge as the gates started to lift stepped back uncertainly, while I took my finger on and off the button in agitation and the gates jumped up and down. Eventually I took a punt on just holding it down again and hoping that the gates completed opening, which thankfully they did. The elderly couple who’d paused in their walk to watch me operate the bridge, with helpful input at one point along the lines of “ooh, you’ve messed that up”, shuffled off at this point.

Approaching Newbury Lock

Swing bridge open

Thankfully there are no more swing bridges between Newbury and Kintbury, though there are several between Newbury and Reading, and there’s one at Hungerford. There are seven further locks, though in the event we only passed through three on the Saturday before calling a halt to the day's boating. Guyer’s and Higg’s (just beyond the A34 bridge) went OK; Benham proved a bit of a git. The footboard looked ropey, wobbling and with the edge breaking off it, though Ruth did gingerly make her way across it OK; more problematically, one of the balance beams on the upper gates was bowing in the middle, making it tricky to push. I pushed it for a while but all it did was bow even more, while the gate remained unmoved. Ray was eventually reduced to ramming the gates with the boat, which may have shifted something; he and Ruth then pushing together on the non-broken beam managed to do the trick. I’m not sure what happens if you get stuck in a lock – I assume there’s a number you can call, as I guess it must have happened to people.

This Reading Chronicle piece from May notes that repairs had recently been completed to one of the lock gate beams at Benham Lock. It did look as though a piece of metal had been nailed over the dodgy area, presumably to hold it steady, but it was still clearly bowing. I suppose the metal might at least prevent it actually snapping in two.

Ray declared that he’d had enough after wrestling with Benham Lock – it was a warm day – so we moored up for the night just short of Hamstead Marshall. We cooked dinner – I had brought a small tonnage of pork belly strips from the Caversham Butcher. Due to my unfamiliarity with Ray’s oven it was quite late by the time we finally ate and we’d tanked a fair bit of wine by that time, so we only made a scrappy meal and had some meat over to bring back with us.

Our mooring position was just up from a small weir – I assume one of the many points where the River Kennet comes in/goes out. Looking at the map, we were just opposite Hamstead Park, where Ray and I had walked quite recently. There was some sort of tributary going off just opposite us, which online research suggests was probably one end of the Craven Fishery. We could see some sort of little wooden structure, though it was hard to get a good view of it.