Down to Leeds and out on the River Aire

 We have now completed our crossing of the Pennines on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal having come into Leeds a couple of days ago. Today we have come down the last two locks onto the River Aire right by Leeds Station and tonight (Wednesday 24th July) we are moored at Woodlesford about five miles to the east of the city. So here is the tale of our last days on the Canal:

Here, looking back, is the view of Saltaire from the canal. Saltaire is a World Heritage site and was originally built by Titus Salt, to process raw wool coming into the town along the canal. He built not only the huge factories either side of the canal, but also houses for his workers, a church to improve their souls but no pub as he was a teetotaller. The pub in the town is called "Don't Tell Titus!"

To the side of the canal passing through Shipley is this rather uninspiring ditch. At one time this was the start of a three mile branch into Bradford. Most of the course of the Bradford Canal has long been built over, so it is unlikely ever to be restored.

Coming closer to Leeds we passed through Rodley where this swing bridge is found. Rodley is reckoned to be the last safe place to moor overnight before embarking on the final locks down to the city. Though things are improving this has been the place for dissolute youths to vandalise boats and the locks. We saw no sign of such damage this time and the CRT chaps we spoke to have not had any trouble this year.

Behind Violet Clare, the boat we have been sharing with for a few days down to Leeds, is what is becoming known as the 'swing bridge from hell'. This bridge is privately owned and was put in as a stronger bridge to take trucks to access a proposed development site. A normal swing bridge takes less than 5 minutes to open, pass through, and close behind. This one takes 15-20 minutes even when you have learned how to do it and that takes detailed study of the complex instructions. We set off down to Leeds about 7.30 am but fortunately we had a rehearsal of this bridge operation in helping another boat through the previous afternoon.

This staircase of three locks is Newlay Locks, one of three staircase sets of locks on the descent into Leeds. Again you can see Violet Clare coming out of the locks with Judy to the right waiting to get back on.

I can't remember if I've featured one of these before. It is a horse ramp to allow a horse pulling a boat to get out of the canal after falling in.

Nearly four hours after setting off, here you can see Leo coming into the centre of Leeds. The brick faced round tower to the left is called the Candle Tower and the white one in the centre is Bridgewater Place.

And here we are moored above Office Lock near Granary Wharf in the centre. The canal here is alongside the main railway into Leeds Station and it is quite noisy, but we are on the side of the canal away from the towpath so there are very few people around. You can see the Candle Tower behind our flowers.

We had a couple of nights in Leeds and we revisited this scupture by Andy Scott famous for designing and building the huge horse sculptures at Falkirk known as the Kelpies. It is in the newish Trinity Shopping Centre. The bundle on the horse's saddle is wool.

This is the fine Victorian Market building.

And here is Crown Arcade, another Victorian masterpiece.

All the way along the Leeds and Liverpool there have been milestones like these. Each shows a mileage from Liverpool in whole units and miles always plus a quarter from Leeds. This is the last one hence a quarter mile from Leeds. On the other side it displays 127 miles from Liverpool.

This morning we came down Office Lock, so called as the offices of the Canal company were alongside and the building is still there. Next comes River Lock which marks the very end of the canal and lets boats down onto the River Aire. Here looking back you can see the lock from the river in the centre of the picture. Candle Tower is again in the photo and Leeds Station is just to the right.

Here we are boating on the river through the city. Notice the yellow water taxi coming towards us. The blue bridge is Leeds Bridge.

And here we are approaching Crown Point Bridge. Just beyond this bridge boats must turn right to avoid the weir and head towards Leeds Lock, the first one on the river.

This view was taken looking back from below Leeds Lock as we left the city centre behind us.

After weeks with the limited horizons of the canals, the River Aire seems very wide and deep. Leo goes much faster on the deeper water so it took us very little time to go down the river to Woodlesford.

Here we are about to pass under the M1.

After we had moored above Woodlesford Lock this monster came past us. Though she seems much larger, Sectan is only 60 feet long and just over 15 feet wide and was built to fit the locks of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, bringing cargoes transhipped from ocean going ships at Hull to Leeds and beyond.

Woodlesford Lock is very well looked after and like the village of the same name has flowers everywhere. Even the grass is cut, a rarity these days on the canals.

So now we are on the River Aire and our aim next is to turn up the River Calder to access one of the two other routes back over the Pennines. So we will be going up the Rochdale or the Huddersfield Narrow Canal depending on which seems more likely to be dependable. It should be apparent by our next blog posting which way we are going. Watch this space.

Another Wonder of the Waterways - the Bingley Five Rise

 We are now barely 10 miles from Leeds so another posting seems overdue. As we came down the Bingley Five Rise and Three Rise locks yesterday now seems a good point to update you about our travels, so here goes.

Our last posting took us to the Foulridge Tunnel on the summit of the Leeds and Liverpool and since then we have been gradually dropping down into the Aire Valley and towards the River Aire itself in Leeds:

Having come through Barnoldswick we dropped down the three Greenberfield Locks. The picture shows Leo in the middle of the three locks.

Oddly the Greenberfield Locks were moved a short distance to one side of the canal's original course. Here beyond the house you can see an old canal bridge which now does not cross anything. The original canal included a staircase lock. This means that the top gate of one lock is also the bottom gate of the next higher lock without an intervening pound or stretch of water.

At East Marton the road bridge has two arches one above the other. The lower arch was a packhorse bridge built in about 1790. The top one was added to make the passage of motor vehicles easier - presumably less 'down and up'.

East Marton Church sits in isolation on a small hillock above the canal. Graves include a few for navvies who perished in building the canal.

Beyond East Marton is a section of the canal referred to by boaters as "The Bends". To cover about half a mile the canal travels about three times that distance. It zigags around several intersecting valleys and you can see boats coming on another zigzag even though it may be 15 minutes or more before they reach you. We moored in this delightful spot and walked back to a restaurant in East Marton called Abbots Harbour for Sunday lunch.

Soon after the Bends we arrived at the top of the Bank Newton Locks. These six locks drop boats down to an aqueduct where the canal crosses the River Aire for the first time as it joins the Aire Valley. This superb view of hills near Skipton is taken from lock 37, the penultimate one.

And here is Leo in the bottom lock. You might be surprised to see that we are alone in these locks. There seem to be very few boats travelling around here.

There is a short gap between the Bank Newton  locks and the six Gargrave locks and it is here that the canal crosses the Priestholme Aqueduct over the River Aire which is quite a little river at this point.

We went down three of the six Gargrave locks on Monday 15th into the centre of the village and the following day we had intended to get a bus to Malham and walk back along the Pennine Way which crosses the canal at Gargrave. Whether the bus did not run or whether we were waiting at the wrong bus stop we're not sure but we didn't manage this. So instead we did a circular walk from Gargrave. This view of the church at Gargrave was taken as we climbed up into the hills south of the village.

On Wednesday we continued for five miles into Skipton. This took us down the other 3 locks at Gargrave. After these locks there is an 18 mile lock free pound to reach the Bingley locks. While there are no locks on this stretch there are loads and loads of swing bridges like this one at Niffany Farm. At each we  have to stop while Helen gets off to open the bridge. A few have been very stiff and need Ian and sometimes also passers by to lend a hand!

Coming into Skipton we spotted a steeplejack repointing this chimney. Quite a task and what a journey to work.

We don't often have religious interludes on our blog but Ian was very taken by the sunlight coming through this stained glass window in Skipton Church. The scene is of the presentation of Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem.

There is a canal junction in Skipton. Here under the bridge is the Springs branch which goes for about half a mile finishing under the walls of Skipton Castle. Unfortunately there has been a rockfall and there is nowhere to turn round a boat as long as Leo. So, on Thursday, we carried on out of Skipton heading for Silsden.

We had arranged with another boat, Violet Clare, to share the operation of the innumerable swing bridges so one boat swings one and the other does the next one, with the boats leapfrogging each other each time. This undoubtedly reduces the work. The picture is of Milking Hill Swing Bridge near Farnhill.

So finally we reached the end of the 18 mile lock-free pound at the top of the Bingley "Five Rise" locks. Here the canal plummets down a very steep hill going down five consecutive staircase locks, each of them very deep at 12 feet, so 60 feet in all. This is followed by the Bingley "Three Rise" which, you've guessed it, is a staircase of three locks which are not so deep dropping another 30 feet. The top lock is in the background of this picture. We shared the locks with Violet Clare, the boat in the foreground. This boat with Eddy and Judy onboard is 60 feet long and so pretty much at the limit of this canal. So it was difficult sometimes to get the downstream gates open to let their boat out. Leo is 57 feet long, so much easier.

I'll bet you're wondering why this photo is in black and white. Is it a historic photo? No it is simply because somehow Helen managed to switch the camera to black and white. Still it is rather artistic I think. The picture is taken looking down the Bingley Five Rise from near the top. Quite vertiginous!

Here you can see both boats near the bottom of the Five Rise. As you can see we had plenty of CRT staff and volunteers to help us down.

And here is another shot (in colour this time) looking down the locks.

There is some interesting paddle gear on the Five Rise shown here. The handle pulls the paddle across, opening a hole in the gate.

The height of the gates in this flight is astonishing. Sitting on a tall cill the gates must be nearly 20 feet tall. They do not seal particularly well and the poor helmsman (Ian on Leo and Eddy on Violet Clare) gets quite wet. And the water was pretty cold. Perhaps not so bad because it was a hot day.

This view was taken looking back up the flight from the bottom.

And here we are at the bottom of the Bingley Three Rise. No lock keepers to help from here on.

Right at the bottom of the Bingley locks is the Damart factory making thermal underwear to keep us all warm.

We had hoped to moor at the Fisherman's Inn a mile beyond the Bingley locks but sadly there was no space for one, let alone two boats. So we carried on down the Dowley Gap pair of staircase locks and here we are shown crossing a second aqueduct over the Aire just below these locks. We moored just the other side of this aqueduct last night and walked into Saltaire for a look round.

So that takes our story to the Bingley locks which are like nowhere else on our waterways. From here we will be going down the remaining locks, including several more staircases, to Leeds where the canal joins the River Aire.

Reaching the Summit of the Leeds and Liverpool

 I did start this year saying that I would post on this blog as and when we passed a junction of canals. This time the trigger is reaching the summit at 487 feet above sea level of the Leeds and Liverpool. If I didn't post now then I would have too many photos to put on at one go and that might be toooooo boring. So here goes. The last posting covered the climbing of the Wigan locks, so that is where we start:

After a night at Adlington where we spent a chatty afternoon with Dave and Jan on Yes Dear, we moved on through Chorley. This mill is known as Botany Bay Mill. It is said that the name comes from the Australian Penal Colony, the suggestion being that the navvies who built the canal were as welcome in the neighbourhood as the convicts in Australia. This mill has been a retail outlet but is not open now.

Soon after Chorley we came to the bottom of the flight of 7 locks at Johnson's Hillock. The bottom lock is on the right. Strangely the stretch of canal from the top of the Wigan flight to here was built as part of the Lancaster Canal. To the left under the footbridge is the Walton Summit branch which was originally intended to reach Preston where it should have crossed the River Ribble on an aqueduct and then headed north. The aqueduct was never built and this stretch of canal was incorporated in the Leeds and Liverpool.

We came up these locks with another boat called Pilgrim and you can see Leo here following Pilgrim into the fourth lock. More of PIlgrim and its owners, Chris and Chris, later.

We moored near the top of the flight on Sunday in time for a pub lunch in the Top Lock pub. So it was Monday before we climbed the 6 locks at Blackburn. Here Leo is waiting its turn below the bottom lock while two other boats went first.

Leo in this picture is in the third lock at Blackburn and curiously the sun has come out.

This is Eanam Wharf at Blackburn. The unloading area for narrowboats is under the projecting roof. We liked the dragon trying to get out of the building.

Here's the dragon's head.

This old mill is now used by Granada TV.

From Blackburn onwards the M65 was our constant companion. Here approaching Church we crossed the motorway on an aqueduct.

This milestone and memorial at Church records the half way point on the canal between Liverpool and Leeds being sixty-three and five-eighths miles from each.

There are three swing bridges around here. This is the one at Church which was in a much better state than last time we came this way. You need an anti-vandal key to release the locking leg and then a windlass to wind it up. Once that is done it is a question of woman power to push open the bridge. This one needed a spot of Ian assistance to close it after Leo had passed through.

This is a floating dry dock. We've seen a few of these and you can see that it has a narrowboat in it. You drive the narrowboat into it when it is partly sunk and then pump air into chambers that lift the dock and allow the water to flow out so that the narrowboat is left dry to work on its hull.

The canal crosses a valley at Burnley on a huge embankment which is dead straight for nearly a mile. Sorry about the spot on the picture but it was raining quite hard and the view was dismal.

The embankment is about 60 feet high and a wonder of the waterways. Here you can see roofs below us.

And towards the east end the canal crosses a main road on an aqueduct.

We've seen a few of these lately. It is a horse ramp to help in getting out of the canal any horses that have fallen in. When a horse was towing a boat round a bend there was a danger that rather than the boat moving forward the horse would be pulled backwards into the water. So it was helpful to have an easy way to get the horse out again.

It must be said that Burnley and Nelson are not very pretty! Here is one of several large mills from cotton days.

Finally on Thursday we came up the last six locks at Barrowford to reach the summit level of the canal at 487 feet above sea level. The picture shows Leo in the top lock with the lock house on the right. Sadly our friends on Pilgrim had an accident in one of the Barrowford Locks. The boat caught on a projection on the lock wall, tipped sideways and partly filled with water. Their engine has failed and half the boat was wet through. We left them today at a marina sorting things out with a repairer and their insurer.

We stayed a couple of nights at Barrowford and liked the town and the open country moorings. The picture is of the Heritage Centre in what appears to be a fine Elizabethan building.

And here is the packhorse bridge which we crossed several times. The bridge crosses the river called the Pendle Water.

One reason for staying an extra day in Barrowford was to walk to and climb Pendle Hill. The hill is about 5 miles from our mooring so we walked there and caught the bus most of the way back. This is the land of the Pendle Witches from the early 1600s and the statue (that's the one on the viewer's left) is of Alice Nutter, one of the witches hanged following trial in Lancaster. Note Helen is matching the hands.

We followed the Pendle Water most of the way to the hill and in Alice Nutter's home village of Roughlee is this impressive waterfall.

Two Muscovy Ducks sitting on a wall were not perturbed by our passing close by.

We left our streamside path at the village of Barley and began the climb in earnest. A flight of steep steps leads diagonally across the fell.

The top is 1,831 feet above sea level and here is the view looking broadly east towards where Leo is moored.

Pendle Hill is a great viewpoint and as well as these Yorkshire Peaks which I've labelled we could see Simon's Seat above Wharfedale. In optimum conditions you can see the Lake District peaks and on a previous ascent we could see Helvellyn.

A fold in the ground on the way down was home to a forest of foxgloves.

We like the mooring at the top of the Barrowford locks but this morning we tore ourselves away and set off out of Lancashire heading for our home county of Yorkshire. A mile from the mooring we had to go through the Foulridge Tunnel and in the photo we are waiting for the lights to change to green to allow us through. The tunnel is not wide enough for boats to pass so the traffic lights allow boats through in the other direction at the hour and in our direction at the half hour. The tunnel is just under a mile long so that it is time enough. The tunnel is famous for a cow called Daisy who, in 1912, swam through it. We put our lifejackets on to make sure we didn't!

The tunnel seems a good place to break this narrative. From here our way lies down towards Leeds but we intend to take our time over the journey as we much prefer the east side of this canal. But then, we do fly the White Rose from our stern.