Up the Grand Union to Cosgrove

 Well, it's been quite a while since we updated our blog. I have quite a fund of excuses ready - no signal for 2 nights, hosting visitors and doing bits of the engine service for starters. But here we are and my aim is to do two updates in fairly quick succession, the first one tonight. We are actually now near the top  of the Buckby Lock flight but this update will take us to Cosgrove which we reached on Monday (7th September), starting from Aylesbury.

Above is the view of the basin at Aylesbury. We had moored overnight on the pontoons to the right and the large white buildings to the left are part of the Buckinghamshire University.

And here we are leaving Aylesbury on Tuesday 1 September about to pass under a rather pleasing footbridge before coming to terms with the 16 narrow locks which lead up to the main line of the Grand Union Canal.

Soon we entered a part of the canal where there is barely a channel wide enough for Leo among the reeds which grown in from each side. This is three locks up from the town.

And here we are approaching Bridge 10 on this stretch. Coming through the narrow channel we were herding a couple of swans seen in this picture. We slowes down so as not to harass them too much until the channel widened out to allow us to pass them.

No, this is not the Aylesbury Arm. We moored on Tuesday evening pretty much where we'd been on Sunday, just below Black Jack's lock and four locks from the top. We went for a walk from here and found ourselves walking along a part of the Wendover Arm beyond where we'd moored a few days before. This section is undergoing restoration and may one day be opened to navigation.

There are extensive views from the Wendover Arm towpath and this is Mentmore Castle taken with a long zoom. Unfortunately it is not open to visitors. It was built by the Rothschild family.

Our walk led us back past several of the Tring reservoirs. These were built to supply the canal with water to the summit level of this part of the Grand Union. Every boat over the summit uses 200,000 gallons of water - unless you share with a friend and reduce this by half.

Here is the view from close to our mooring on Tuesday night showing Black Jack's lock just above us. It is a pretty spot and very quiet, though we were sharing with several other boats.

On Wednesday we carried on up the last few locks to the main line. The last two locks form a staircase which is a rare sight on the Grand Union. In the picture you can see Leo in the bottom lock of the two that form a staircase.

Back on the main line we turned left (north) and soon passed this delightful cottage at Marsworth.

Another rarity on the Grand Union is a swing bridge. This one is at Pitstone, having come down a couple more Marswoth Locks. No locks or special dodges to this swing bridge - just get off and push it as Helen is demonstrating.

Along this part of the canal, now beyond the Chilterns, we looked back and periodically saw the white lion carved into the chalk hills near Dunstable. It seems to have gone a bit brown in places and looks as though it needs cleaning up.

On Wednesday we moored near Slapton and this picture was taken the following morning having come down Slapton Lock. At several locks along this part of the Grand Union you can see evidence of an extra lock built alongside the original one. You can just make out in this picture from below the lock where there was a narrow lock next to the wide one to allow more traffic to pass along this busy canal.

A little further on at Church Lock the bridge shows where there was a narrow lock beside the wide one.

Grove Lock is a delightful spot with a pub alongside the lock. The pub has these fine and very appropriate supports for its hanging baskets.

We moored on Thursday on the edge of Linslade and Leighton Buzzard. The two towns are on either side of the canal. We walked to Old Linslade Church and tramped part of the Greensand Ridge Walk. In the evening we enjoyed this superb sunset.

On Friday we came to the edge of Milton Keynes. First we had to descend the Soulbury Three Locks shown here with some sort of building works going on. The white building is a pub by the middle lock. We arrived at the top to find a boat going our way already at the botttom  of the top lock. Peter on Silver Scott was kind enough to wait for us in the middle lock and we then shared the rest of the locks that day. We moored in Fenny Stratford.

A little way up the towpath from our mooring we found this milepost which looks much older than the many cast iron posts showing distances to Braunston. This one tells us that we are now 55 miles from the Thames.

On Saturday we cycled to Bletchley Park where the German Enigma codes and other cyphers were broken during World War Two. The picture is of the mansion but the many huts in the grounds were also open with exhibitions about the code breaking work during the war. We found it fascinating but also confusing. Though they have done their best to open during the Covid difficulties, crowds tended to build up in places so there were displays that we skipped and that probably did not help our understanding of how the code breaking actually worked.

On Sunday we had an arrangement to meet our daughter Lucy plus wife Becca and of course our wonderful grandson, Nathan at Campbell Park a few miles up the canal. Here we are looking back to Fenny Stratford Lock. Fenny Stratford was never intended to have a lock, the 15 miles from Cosgrove to Stoke Hammond was originally built to be all on the same level. However the northern section leaked badly so they put in an extra lock to drop the level of the northern section. So Fenny Stratford lock only has a difference in level of one foot. But it still takes quite a while to fill and empty and has the additional complication of having a swing bridge across the middle of the lock!

We were lucky at Campbell Park to find a mooring and enjoyed our day with the grown up children and grandson. The labyrinth in the park proved to be a great success with the adults running round and Nathan doing his best to follow the paths. The picture above was taken on the following day when we cruised round the rest of Milton Keynes and back out into open country. It takes a while to get past Milton Keynes as the canal makes its way up the eastern edge and then along the north, crossing this aqueduct over a new road at Grafton Street.

This fun train mural is as the canal passes Wolverton, the last of the Milton Keynes 'villages'.

Just past Wolverton the canal swings northward again and crosses the River Great Ouse on this iron aqueduct. Like the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct near Llangollen the water is held in an iron trough on supports over the river.

It is not so far down as the Llangollen version but still intimidating with no wall or railings on the left hand side. Before the aqueduct was built boats had to go down an additional set of locks to river level and then climb more locks back up to the canal level. It must have been quite a bottleneck.

We moored on Monday evening above Cosgrove Lock soon after crossing the Great Ouse. Cosgrove is a pretty village and just below our mooring is this horse tunnel underneath the canal. Originally the stables were one side of the canal and the towpath was on the other side, so this was the means of getting the horses across the canal. The tunnel now forms a useful link for villagers trying to reach the Barley Mow on the other side.

From Cosgrove we had a good walk not only through the village but across fields to Castlethorpe where grassy ramparts show the outlines of a large castle still guarded by this soldier. No masonry is visible but the outlines of the ramparts give an idea of just how large it was. The other notable sight around Cosgrove is a canal branch which goes west for a short distance above the lock. Now used for mooring boats this once went a dozen miles or more with a couple of locks all the way to Buckingham.

So we hope this was interesting as part one of our travels into the East Midlands. Part two will follow shortly, but not this evening.