Unto the ends of the earth (Keadby)

Sykehouse Junction to Keadby

June 2018

By the time you read this post we should (hopefully) have completed the first third of our tideway passage and be safely tucked away in Stockwith Basin, waiting for the next tide to push us up to Torksey. But more about that another day.

New Junction Canal

The New Junction Canal may only be about five miles long but don't assume you will crack through it in an hour. 

This is one of the last UK canals to be built and it is fitting that (MSC apart) it is one of the last to carry regular commercial traffic. The big boys have a land based driver who sprints from bridge to bridge preparing the way for the tanker, but for the rest of us progress is constantly interrupted by lift /swing bridges or the massive Sykehouse Lock. 

Sykehouse Lock

The canal isn't without its charm and the moveable bridges are among the largest we have come across. The lock sits midway along the canal and in an ideal world you would have bike to commute from end to end. The whole shindig is released by a key in the middle, which lets you swing a bridge out of the way. Then its up and down to the control podiums at both ends. I hate to think how much water the lock contains.

Feeling small!

The canal finishes with a flourish in the form of the Don Aqueduct. Here an iron trough was built about 100 years ago, with side low enough to spill surplus water into the Don just below. Its sides are also open to allow flood water to pass over the canal, held out of the canal by guillotine gates. This arrangement is, to the best of my knowledge, unique.

Don Aqueduct

Then it is hard left into the Stainforth and Keadby Canal, and the link into the River Trent. Bramwith Lock can be used  in long format, but for most boats the short end section is enough, dropping you down to the pound into Thorn.

This is a quiet waterway and you rarely see many boats. Thorn is the main event of the canal, sporting a number of boatyards and a useful town centre and Sainsburys. The Thorn Lock is short and prevents full length boats using this sheltered inland route. They have to face the perils of Trent Falls. The moorings at the service point were all taken so we stopped just beyond the temperamental footbridge. I remember this bridge from last time but it didn't stop me struggling to get the barrier gates in place and release the brakes on the swivel motor.

Its grim up north

Thursday was spent covering the final 12 miles to Keadby. This really is a waterway to the end of the world. You chug along for mile after mile with just the odd swing bridge to negotiate. The busy railway line is alongside the canal, its drivers offering cheery waves to the occasional boater. Most unusually, there are a number of manned level crossings beside canal bridges, where boaters are able to pass the time of day with the lonely holders of the railway posts.

This as also an area of windmills, their slender masts towering over the fields and their sails casting twirling shadows on the crops beneath. We saw these wind farms being built last time we were in the area and now they are such a fixture.

The end of the canal includes the unusual Vazon sliding railway bridge where the rail deck half swivels and half slides out of the way - all controlled by an adjacent signal box.

Vazon Sliding Raiway Bridge

No sooner were we through the bridge than the river lock opened and there were the Balmers and Waterways Routes coming up. We had been tracking each others progress so this came as no surprise, it was just a shame not to get a photo of them coming in from the river.

Keadby Lock

So here we sit, at the end of the world with 44 miles of tideway between us and the safety of Cromwell Lock at Newark. I have to admit to a few concerns as our maximum speed over still flat water is a mere 3mph. We are therefore taking the tideway in three jumps, overnighting in Stockwith (13 miles), Torksey (15 miles) and then Cromwell / Newark (16 miles). 

Keadby

The plan is to join the flood tide at 7.45am on Friday and reach Stockwith on the top of the tide just over two hours later. We have to trust the experience of the lock keepers because there really isnt a fall back option on this first leg, other than a return to Keadby. 

Did I say that I would never take the butty on the tideway?

Rochdale 2013 - Ferrybridge

Rochdale 2013
South Bramwith to Ferrybridge
29th August 2013

17 miles – 3 locks – 7 hours

Another lazy start at 11.00am, delaying departure as we completed a long lists of jobs which needing attending to around the boat, including a sign for the front of the boat advertising the sale of our preserves.

Bramwith Lock

Foraging opportunities came thick and fast, with a big crop of blackberries available on the junction with the New Junction Canal – that relatively new cut with it’s dead straight line punctuated only by a succession of lift bridges and one huge lock.

Previous travel along this canal had led us to a particularly productive abandoned orchard which we revisited and picked kilos and kilos of apples supplemented by three kilos of blackberries. Fortunately this spot was free of wasps, insects which plagued us all the way down the canal and saw the executioner in regular use in spite of the closed windows and doors. They were everywhere!  Unusually, the area was also riddled with mint, too old to use but presumably left over from someone’s garden. The mint gave off lovely waves of fragrance as I bashed my way through the brambles to reach the best blackberries.

Don Aqueduct - New Junction Canal

After picking for an hour or so a little convoy of boats came past with a bloke on a bike riding down the towpath setting all the bridges. These bridges are a real pain so we cast off in undignified haste and caught the procession up sailing majestically through all the obstructions whilst Helen made jam in the galley.

The Aire and Calder is the big daddy of the waterways hereabouts – built for huge commercial craft but sadly all the trade has gone with the last aggregate contract running out this year. We are left with a jumbo sized network which has an air of melancholy about it – more so that the Midlands canals which have been reclaimed as the preserve of the leisure boater. We tailed a couple of local boater to Pollington Lock where we hit a snag. The electronics failed and we couldn’t operate the lock. We tried everything but it was dead, so we resorted to calling Canals and Rivers who sent a guy out and he overrode the boater operation panels and managed us through from the control room.

Convoy down the New Junction Canal

Pears had been on Helen's daily want list and I finally found a tree, just outside Killingley Colliery. They were as hard as bullets and not that many of them but one does not look a gift horse in the mouth...

We now needed to moor but Knottingley offered few attractive options, so instead we moved on to Ferrybridge and its visitor moorings which are unpleasantly close to the A1, but are at least secure.

Huddersfield Ring 2011 - Thorne to Southfield Junction

Huddersfield Ring

Thorne to Southfield Junction

5th August 2011

14 miles - 2 locks - 8 hours

You couldn't find a quieter spot on the Stainforth and Keadby Canal, surrounded by a carpet of slow moving weed. The railway is an ever present companion in these parts and it carries a constant stream of heavy haul waggons of industrial materials to and fro the residue of the northern industry. Whilst the canal may be dead to trade its good to see commercial traffic moving in the area.

The New Junction Canal - all of it!

We stopped in Thorne - there are not many towns in the area so you have to make the most of the opportunities that present themselves. Its a bustling market town with a scrappy market - complete with a good compliment of banks and supermarkets.

After negotiating a baffling footbridge we came to the moorings on finger jetties. This site offers water, elsan disposal, showers and a book exchange. These finger moorings are ok if you have a shortish boat but for anything longer then 50ft you will need to look to the parkside linear moorings.

River Don Aqueduct

As ever, our wanderings took us to the parish church, probably the oldest building in the town. As it happened it was open with the verger doing a spot of cleaning after a storm shook loose some masonry, which gave us an opportunity to have a good look round.

This canal has some similarities to the Fenland drains being broad and straight but instead of being in a ditch it sits on a raised embankment offering great views over the surrounding farmland which stretched out into the distance.

Little Holland on the New Junction Canal

We had made a second stop at Stanilands Marina, filling up with diesel and also looking for an inverter to replace the one which gave up the ghost a fer days ago. They had a monster one  second hand for £120, but it was really just too big for our needs so we passed. After the long straights the canal starts to wind above Thorne, adding interest to the trip. Whilst there were not many boats about there were plenty of people out enjoying the waterways, dog walkers, hikers and boys taking a refreshing dip. 

Went Aqueduct

The canal straightens up again at Bramwith, site of an enormous lock which was built to accommodate long trains of Tom Puddings which were used to move vast quantities of coal till the mid 1980's. The Stainforth and Keadby finlly runs out at the junction of the River Don Navigation (Sheffield) and the New Junction Canal. The trouble with our dash through the South Yorkshire Navigations is that we are leaving all sorts of destinations behind. Whilst it pains me to leave waterways unexplored we just don't have time to do everything. No matter - its a good excuse to return in years to come.

The New Junction Canal probably rates in few boaters top 10's, but I was rather taken with it. Sure its only 5.5 miles long and so straight you can see from one end to the other, but it packs plenty of interest into its short length. First off is the impressive River Don Aqueduct, a low slung affair whose swollen belly laps the surface of the Don beneath. Added to that it is guarded by a huge guillotine gate which stands poised over the southern end. The Don Aqueduct is mirrored by the equally robust Went Aqueduct at the northern end. In between there is a long row of utilitarian steel lift bridges which bear more then a passing resemblance to those seen in Holland. Then there is the vast boater operated Sykehouse Lock, where it takes an age to walk from one end to the other armed with your trusty BW key to operate each section in sequence. It's foolproof but awesomely big - part of an EU funded waterway enhancement to Sheffield 40 years ago which never lived up to its promise. All those millions spent on a white elephant.

Southfield Junction Mooring

We discovered a gaggle of narrowboats moored at the junction with the Aire and Calder and one look at it's high steel piled sides caused us to spin round and join them. There are times when its a good idea to take notice of what the locals do -  they usually know all the best spots. This is a fine spot to moor on a warm summers night but is probably pretty bleak on a rainy winters day.


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