To Bedford and Back Again

We've reached the end of the River Great Ouse at Bedford and now we are on our way back downstream.  From Hemingford we came upstream on Thursday through Huntingdon, passing the marina at Hartford where David kept his boat for a couple of years.  We went into the marina which is a large lake and had a good look round before going back onto the river.

Here Leo is lining up to go through the old bridge at Huntingdon.  You can just make out through the bridge the piers of the newer and uglier bridge that carries the A14.  I've tried to hide that as best I can.








Above Huntingdon you come to St Neots which has a most peculiar lock.  Although only about 13 foot wide it is long enough to just about fit three Leos in end to end.  Goodness knows why it was built so long when those either side were not.

Here is Leo sitting well back in the lock.  The top lock gates are just before the footbridge.

On our way we spotted this wide beam boat with a turf roof.  It's the first time we've seen a canal boat where you have to mow the lawn!










On Friday evening we moored just below the bridge at Great Barford.  There is a lovely 17 arch bridge across the river here and the river end of the village is attractive with the church and the Anchor (where we had a good meal in the evening).  The rest of the village is a bit plain and ordinary.  I think it is really now just a suburb of Bedford.

Here is the bridge at Great Barford, seen as we went through it on Saturday morning.  Most narrowboats, ours included, go through the 'no entry' arch as this helps with the tight turn on the other side.

Whilst we did not find much of interest in the main village of Great Barford, apart from the Post Office and stores you can see behind Helen, there were these magnificent dahlias.








On Saturday we carried on to Bedford.  This section of the river is delightful with its twists and turns and lined with trees.

This is Castle Mills Lock which is the deepest on the Great Ouse.  While it would not win any prizes on the main canal network it is about 10 feet deep and you can see it has about 6 feet above the high water level to accommodate flood water, so it seems much deeper.

And this is Cardington Lock, the last before entering Bedford itself.  The guillotine for the lock is the left one, the others are on the weir.  In the weir stream is a canoe slalom which was being used for a competition when we were passing.







Bedford is a town that really makes the most of its river.  Two arms of the river flow parallel, one a few feet higher than the other and they are connected by a short channel with a lock.  There are paths along both rivers and the upper one is a proper promenade which probably dates back to Victorian times.

Here is Leo moored on the upper river at Bedford.  In between the two rivers is a linear park with a boating lake and a small cafe.  It feels like being at the seaside, especially in the sunshine.

This is further along the upper river with the Swan Hotel on the right and the town bridge beyond.

Having arrived at lunchtime on Saturday we took the bikes in the afternoon and explored through the town up to what we had read is the navigable limit at Kempston a couple of miles above Bedford.  By the mill at Kempston is where the proposed canal to Milton Keynes on the Grand Union will leave the Great Ouse.  Have a look at http://www.b-mkwaterway.org.uk/  for more information about this.  Although we'd read that you can take a narrowboat up to Kempston Mill and turn there, we would not recommend it.  Apart from the very low footbridge below the Mill, there is a section below that bridge where the water does not look much over a foot deep!  That part of the river is also too narrow to turn a narrowboat so trying this section could mean reversing for the best part of a mile.

So on Sunday we cruised a short way up river going under the two road bridges and one of the very low railway bridges (clearance when we did it was perhaps 6 feet 2 inches) and then turned round in the width of the river.  We came back to Great Barford on Sunday and today in fairly rainy conditions we've not gone too far, so we are now moored on the Lammas Meadow just downstream of the centre of St Neots.

By the market in Bedford is this splendid building which was the Corn Exchange.

And this is the County Court by the river.  Its chief claim to fame is that James Hanratty was found guilty here of the 'A6 murders' and in 1962 was the last man hanged in Britain.

Some of the locks on the Great Ouse have been moved and just to the right of the wall here you can still make out an old lock that is no longer used.  This is just upstream of Great Barford.

This is the lock at Eaton Socon which, like some others on the Ouse, has a bay in it to take more boats.  Unfortunately we were on our own this morning.  There have been very few boats moving on the river, even over the weekend, though there are plenty berthed in marinas here.

We saw this building from a distance as we came up river through St Neots and thought it was a church.  It was very obvious from where we are moored tonight so we walked over to take a look.  It proves to be Paines Mill which has now been converted into flats.  It is a fine piece of Victorian architecture.

We've had our wettest day today since May which says something about how good the summer has been.  We don't think there has been enough rain though to affect the flow of the river much, so hopefully we will be on our way in the next few days back towards Denver.  We plan to do a couple of diversions on the way, so watch this space.