Visiting Sheffield and coming down again

This posting covers our three days in Sheffield and then the descent of the Tinsley Locks in much better weather than we went up them, so some blue sky pictures for a change.

Sheffield Cathedral is well worth a visit and we particularly liked the steel nativity and steel is such an appropriate material for the city.

It even has some roof angels.  We saw these when we were on the Middle Levels last year in churches at March and nearby towns.

The Cathedral has some modern parts but they blend in so well with the old.  One new addition is this lantern tower as you come into the church.

The Peace Garden behind the Town Hall is delightful with its water features.

And the Winter Gardens is a fine mix of botanical hothouse and social space with artworks, cafes and restaurants.

We were intrigued by these road works which have revealed old tram rails buried under the tarmac.  Of course Sheffield has now come full circle with a network of modern trams which are convenient, frequent and even accept bus passes for old folk like Ian.

The Lyceum Theatre has been repainted since we last came and we took advantage of our stay in the city to go to a production of "The Girl on the Train" which was excellent. We nearly leapt off seats with the clever effects towards the end.

We met our friends Nick and Wendy for lunch on Wednesday and walked with them to the Botanical Gardens.  The highlights here were a fossilised Clubmoss Tree and this Bear Pit.  It was built as entertainment for the Victorian visitors but it can't have been much fun for the bear kept in the bottom of this uninviting hole.  The present bear is bronze so no threat to these visitors.

But Helen still tried to make him feel better after the ill treatment of his forbears.

We visited Kelham Island Museum which had some fascinating exhibits from Sheffield's industrial past.  This painting is of the Sheaf Works which happens to be exactly where we moored Leo while in Sheffield.  Leo was moored about where the left hand vessel is shown.

Kelham Island has the River Don Steam Engine which is possibly the largest working steam engine in the UK and perhaps the world.  It is 12,000 hp and to see it running as it does once a day was wonderful.  The flywheel alone weighs 51 tons and the machine can change direction of rotation almost instantly.  The power is astonishing with remarkably little noise and vibration.

This picture on the side of a building is near the canal basin and is of a steelworker.  It is not painted but is made out of different coloured bricks.

After three nights in the basin we came back down the Tinsley Locks on Friday (28th June).  There are a level couple of miles before you reach the Top Lock.  On the way we passed a mooring decorated with skeletons.

I think these two are playing cards or studying Nicholson's Waterways Guide to decide where to go tomorrow.

Here we are crossing the Worksop Road Aqueduct  known locally as "T'Acky Dock".

This ornate footbridge looks as if it might be a really old wrought iron one.  In fact it is modern.  It is good to see that we can still make things which are beautiful as well as functional.

Here we are sharing a lock with Braggabout on the way down.

And here we are leaving the bottom lock of the Tinsley flight.  The bridge over the River Don which we joined here is called the Halfpenny Bridge.

Cycling towards us on the towpath is Derek, our CRT assistant, who helped us through the locks and locked up after us. 

Two locks below the flight is Holmes Lock which is the last one for which boaters have to book and be accompanied through.  Here we are leaving Holmes Lock and we are now on our own heading towards Rotherham.

We have seen kingfishers including one on the level section of canal approaching Sheffield.  But in case you miss them there is a mural of kingfishers approaching Ickles Lock.

Below Ickles the passage of the boats stirred up bubbles of gas from the canal.  We wondered what is fermenting down there.

 In the winter we volunteer every couple of weeks at Naburn Lock on the Yorkshire Ouse.  Coming down the Tinsley flight we met Anthony who organises the volunteers at Naburn.  At Rotherham Lock we also met Lucy who does similar work.  It was good to see them both.

This is the oil terminal in Rotherham to which still has deliveries by barge along the canal.  Each barge is 61m long, 6m wide and has a draft of 2.4m.  They come in from Rotterdam via the Humber and Goole.  We have not met one yet but we have met a boat whose back rope was snapped by the suction from one passing.  The advice is not to moor on pins round here!

Having come down the locks from Sheffield we stopped once again at Eastwood and caught the tram into Rotherham in the afternoon.  Rotherham is one of four places in the UK that has a chantry chapel on its river bridge.  You can visit all of them by boat.  The others are Wakefield, St. Ives Cambridgeshire, and Bradford on Avon.

We visited Rotherham Minster.

In the Minster there is a memorial to 50 people, mostly young lads, who perished in a disaster on the canal.  In 1841 a vessel was launched down a slipway into the canal.  The custom was that the local lads used to ride the boat down the slipway but this time the vessel turned turtle and so many young lives were lost.  We spoke to the verger who has written a book on the subject of the disaster.  What a sad story.

In many of the locks here the steel piling is covered with tiny mussels which squirt water as the level drops.  This is difficult to take a picture of but you can just make out a water jet in the left middle of this photo.

On Saturday temperatures of 31 degrees were forecast, so we found a shady mooring just below Mexborough Top Lock.  Now our solar panel has broken we don't need to seek the sun.

The man living in the old lock cottage is a creative metalworker. We liked this dragon over the porch.

Coming down the river today we managed to spot Conisbrough Castle through the trees.

And here we are turning onto the lock cut at Sprotbrough where we are moored tonight (Sunday 30th).  This afternoon we have had a good walk around Sprotbrough Flash, a lake caused by mine subsidence which is now a bird reserve.

Tomorrow we will press on to Doncaster where Martin and Sue our new friends on Braggabout have been encouraging us to visit the market and especially the fish market.  After that we will be setting our sights on York and Ripon via Selby.

South Yorkshire Navigations to Sheffield

This is the story of the last few days first on the River Don Navigation and then on the Sheffield and Tinsley Canal which collectively are referred to as part of the South Yorkshire Navigations.  We pick up the story last Sunday (23rd) when we left Bramwith on the Stainforth and Keadby Canal.

A short way below our mooring at Bramwith we came to the junction with the New Junction Canal and turned left towards Doncaster.  In a mile or so we came to Barnby Dunn where we had to lift the bridge shown here.  Fortunately it is electric so simply a case of pressing the button, or so Helen tells me.  The problem is, having put the bridge back down after going through and released all the traffic, it is impossible to cross the road to get back to the boat.

After working up through Long Sandall Lock we came into Doncaster.  The big church is the parish church of St George or Doncaster Minster.  It was built by Gilbert Scott.  We moored on the small public mooring and enjoyed a visit from Sue who lives not far away and came to us by train.  We had a good couple of hours catching up with her news and sharing lunch onboard before Helen accompanied her back to the station and Ian washed up.  We then set off again into Doncaster Lock.

Running over the bottom gates of the lock was a family of mink (or at least that's what we think they were).  The mother was carrying the smallest one in her mouth for some of the time.  All the locks as far as Rotheram are large (200 foot long) and electric.  The huge size accommodates the oil barges that still run up here coming in from Rotterdam via Goole and the Humber.  We've been told they run once or twice a week depending on the tides.  We haven't enountered one yet and hope we don't.

Above Doncaster we were out on the River and passed under the A1.  We were travelling again with Martin and Sue (a different Sue) on Braggabout which is the boat behind us shown here.

We moored for the night at Sprotbrough which is a nice place but the rain came down quite heavily in the evening. Martin and Sue invited us aboard Braggabout to try some interesting cheeses they had bought in Doncaster Market.  On Monday we carried on with Braggabout up the Don to Eastwood Lock.  We passed under the many arched railway viaduct at Conisbrough shown in the picture.  Although it is no longer a railway it is on a cycleway which must have excellent views.

The next locks are first Mexborough Low then Mexborough Top Locks and here you see us following two boats into the Low lock.  Being 200 feet long and about 20 feet wide quite a few narrowboats would fit in this lock.

We even shared the Top Lock with a family of swans, but there is plenty of room.

At Swinton we came to what is now called Waddington's Lock.  This is named after the firm of Waddington which ran a great many barges around here.  Some still remain either moored below the lock as here or in what remains of the old Dearne and Dove Canal above the lock.  Many of the old barges have been sold off and have gone down to London as homes for those who can't afford a bricks and mortar version in the capital.  The Dearne and Dove used to go to Barnsley where the Barnsley Canal joined it and took boats on to Wakefield on the River Calder.  The first two locks are now used by Waddingtons but not much remains of the rest.

From Eastwood we had booked (with Braggabout) to go up the Tinsley Locks into Sheffield on Tuesday.  Unfortunately the weather was dreadful but, having booked, we felt we ought to go.  At first it was not too bad and we cruised into Rotherham past this steel stockholder with bars of the stuff on the side of the canal.

Our appointment was at Holmes Lock and we then carried on to Jordan's Lock.  Above this lock we had to cross above a big weir on the River Don.  This could be quite intimidating if there was significant flow in the river but on Tuesday it was quite placid.

The rain fell down in bucket loads as we climbed the Tinsley Lock flight.  There are 11 locks numbered 1 to 12.  No, that's not a mistake.  Locks 7 and 8 have been combined as changes were made to the railway that made this essential.  We did not take many pictures because of the bad weather and I will try to do some better pictures on the way back in a later posting.

Part way up the flight we passed under the M1 close to Meadowhall.

Here we are in the deep combined lock 7/8.

And here we are in the top lock with its own garden of flowers.

Above the Tinsley Locks we said goodbye to our CRT helpers and carried on for the last 2 and a bit miles into the city.  This picture is of Bacon Lane Bridge, no 6, which features in the opening sequence of the film of the Full Monty.

And this is Victoria Quays, the basin at the end of the canal.

At the end of the navigation is the Straddle Warehouse which sits on piers above the water.  It has now been converted into flats.

 It is getting late now and it has been a hard day coming back down the locks from Sheffield.  So I'll do a posting soon with all that we got up to in Sheffield where we stayed for 3 nights and also feature some sunnier pictures of our return down the Tinsley Locks. 

We've enjoyed our visit to Sheffield and encourage others to make the effort to climb the locks into the city.  Some of the lock gates were very stiff but we had the benefit of a CRT person to help and if you can arrange to share the locks it is much easier.

River Trent again and the Stainforth and Keadby Canal

We are now well on our way towards Sheffield which we hope to reach tomorrow, but we have been socialising and suffering poor internet reception so I am now trying to catch up with a posting taking us to the east end of the Stainforth and Keadby Canal and will later do a post taking us up to Sheffield.  So the last posting was from West Stockwith where the Chesterfield Canal meets the tidal River Trent.  Last Thursday (20th June) we set off through West Stockwith Lock down the Trent:

Before we go down the Trent we wanted to share this photo of a pair of Painted Lady Butterflies on some flowers by the lock at West Stockwith.

So here we are with fellow boaters, Martin and Sue on Braggabout, ready to go out on the tide. We had been up the Trent from Keadby but neither of us had done the trip down this bit of the Trent before.

We went down a few feet onto the high tide level on the river.

We thought these other boaters watching us looked a bit smug.  "Well at least we don't have to go out on the scary river ourselves."

Looking back we could see Braggabout coming out to join us.  We could also see some dark and threatening clouds which brought their share of rain in our direction later.

About a mile and a half down the river we were surprised to see a boat coming towards us fighting its way against the outgoing tide.  Presumably he ran out of tide coming up from Keadby.

Here we are in the rain which came down pretty heavily.  We are passing Owston Ferry with its pub the White Hart.  By this time with increasing flow from the ebbing tide and the river we are doing about 6 or 7 mph.

You can see the flow of the river as it passes these mooring posts for commercial vessels.

After about an hour and a quarter we saw the motorway bridge (M180) ahead.

A few miles on we came to Keadby Bridge and spotted a ship moored below at Gunness Wharf.  The bridge acts as a sign that Keadby Lock is coming up soon.

Just to the right of the crane on an empty ship wharf you can see the tower of Keadby Lock.  What you may not immediately have noticed is that we appear to be going backwards.  We had been told by the lock keepers that the best technique is to turn before the lock to face up stream and against the current and drift slowly back to be ready to power into the lock.  But how far in advance to do this?  Well we did it too soon and found ourselves going backwards very slowly.  So we had to reverse for some of the way down to the lock.

Here is the view into the lock as we drifted backwards slowly past it.  The art is to pick the moment to turn on the power and steer into the lock without hitting the sides as the river current pushes you sideways downstream.

Here Helen is at the bow with the camera looking back to Ian applying the revs to turn us in.

Success!! We nearly made a clean entry but just nudged the outer flood gate gently.  So not 100% but quite well done.

We are now in the lock with ropes up waiting for the arrival of our fellow boaters on Braggabout.

Like us they drifted slowly backwards past the entrance and then turned in successfully.

After the drama of the tide we had a quiet night above Keadby Lock.

On Friday we set off along the Stainforth and Keadby Canal to Thorne.  The first excitement along this wide and deep canal is the Vazon Sliding Railway Bridge.  The whole of the railway deck above the canal slides to one side to allow boats through.  We had to wait for about 15 minutes until there was a sufficiently long gap between trains for the signalman to slide the bridge back and let us through.

Here Leo is heading for the gap now that the bridge has been slid back.

This picture shows the railway deck slid open.  We have previously watched this in action and it is fascinating.  Lots of cables are used to pull the rail deck to one side and back again after the boat has gone through.

Coming into the village of Crowle there used to be an even more surprising railway bridge over the canal with a central section that swung on a central pivot to allow boats underneath.  All that remains is the brick end where the bridge began.  Both this and the Vazon Sliding Bridge were designed to allow sailing vessels through without dropping their masts.

There's a fine matching of technologies here.  First comes the canal and Medge Hall Swing Bridge, then the pylons and most recently the wind turbines of which there are many around here.  Not surprisingly it also tends to be windy in the first few miles from Keadby.

This is Wykewell Lift Bridge which is usually boater operated.  At present it has a fault so you have to book to be let through by a CRT person.  Graham, who let us through, was kind enough to also open two other bridges for us which  ordinarily we would have done ourselves - what a nice chap!

A few of the visitor moorings in Thorne are in a secure locked compound with toilets and showers on site.  What a treat.  We went shopping in Thorne and bought a pie from a splendid pie shop.  More of that later.

Thorne once had a castle which stood on this mound or Motte.  Thorne is quite a 'boaty' place and in the evening we had a pleasant drink outside at the club bar at Staniland Marina.  Sitting outside watching the sun go down on the longest day of the year: you can't beat it.

On Saturday we cruised on a short way to Bramwith.  In this photo we are approaching Thorne Lock where we had to queue for the first time this year, waiting for the broad beam Yorkshire Pud before we could go through once more with Braggabout.

Above the lock is Staniland Marina where we had a drink the previous evening.  More boats in Thorne than we've seen anywhere so far this year and more boats moving too.

Above Bramwith Lock we moored, leaving our friends on Braggabout to carry on to Doncaster.  We moored here to see our daughter Lucy's friends Kerri and Sharon whose boat and home is moored here.  We had a good chat with them on Leo later that evening and caught up on their news which was nice.

But I'm jumping ahead a bit.  We only had a short day on Saturday and stopped in plenty of time for a leisurely lunch.  And you've guessed it, this is where we cut into the excellent pork pie from Thorne!

Time now I think to go and explore our surroundings on the edge of Rotheram before we go up the Tinsley Locks tomorrow into Sheffield.  Our next posting on the blog will be from there.