We decided to go as far as we could depending on the weather and who we locked along with.
Maybe we would make Norwood Top lock and that would leave me to do the rest of the Hanwell flight on Saturday.
About 100 yards down from Hallmark’s mooring after Bridge 173 we went passed an canal side Tesco with shopping time mooring only. A stone carved plaque on the wall recalls that this was once Frogmore Wharf which also housed the important Walkers boat building yard where many of the Grand Union Canal Company fleet were built. Walkers also built the Ovaltine and Cadbury boats.
So we were underway and Hallmark had a short chug down to Stocker’s Lock , the first lock of the day. Suddenly you are in open country again The lock keeper’s cottage is lovely and still occupied by a family working for British Waterways. There are some great canal tools and other bits and pieces in the front garden.
Nearby is Stocker’s House built for the collector of the coal duties when the taxable boundary moved closer to London.
Just a few more minutes and you are at Stocker’s Farm with a handsome cluster of weatherboarded barns.
So a great start to the morning!
Then problems.
Big problems…………….
The engine appeared to be madly overheating. The water gauge is passed the danger level and steam is coming through the deck. No cooling water is pumping out the stern……..Oh no! Breakdown……..
The engine is quickly turned off and we cruise into bushes leaving Hallmark at 45 degrees to the bank
The engine boards are lifted and I realise I have failed to turn on the water stop tap bring in canal water to the engine. What an idiot!
It is quickly turned on the water begins to flow. You can hear it bubbling and slurping.
What damage will there be.......? The engine had been running for about 35 minutes without it normal raw water cooling system.
None of the many connectors and cables had melted seemed harmed.
Was the impeller (which helps pump the water round everywhere) going to have burned out?
The answer was to sit tight and let the temperature drop back to normal levels.
Hallmark runs ‘normally’ with a engine water temperature of 185 degrees. The dial drops back to normal in 35 minutes.
By then a local boater arrives and starts giving really helpful and reassuring advice. He knows because he has a BMC engine and has done the same thing!
Hallmark as drifted in the opposite bank and we can tie her up and the canal is no longer blocked!
I check the other engine calling system which also is water based and add about 2 pints.
After about 45 minutes Hallmark is cooled and I decide ‘to risk’ starting her up. All seems well. Everything sounds OK amnd the temperture is normal!
So ‘disaster' is averted. Hallmark is on its way as if nothing had happened.
After a couple of locks on our own we see a boat in the lock ahead (Cooper’s Mill Lock).
They have not seen Hallmark coming and are about to close the gates and open the paddles. I sound the horn and they realise and wait.
Oh dear it is a narrow boat called Chance which we slowly followed for hours about a week ago.
Luckily, it had a change of crew. It was a family boat and a different brother and family (and dog) were on board!
We link up with Chance for the next six or so locks and almost three hours passes. There are three people on Chance so with Maggie and myself we have a ‘good team’ and make much much better progress than we would have done on our own.
They are handing the boat over to another part of the family at Cowley.
We know this part of the canal above Uxbridge relatively well. We have walked, visited a school canal holiday and we have cruised it with Hallmark but not for seven or eight years.
The canal runs hand in hand with the River Colne for a good part of the route around Uxbridge. On both sides around Harfield there are extensive flooded gravel pits where many narrowboats are moored.
So the names of the locks are familiar
The canal is wider at Wide Water Lock and Denham Deep Lock is deep.
But not as ‘pit like’ as the ~Someton Deep Lock on the Oxford.
Denham Deep is just over 11 foot deep and is the deepest lock on the Grand Union Canal.
Black tempered Jack, the origin of the Mill’s name described a serf who maltreated a donkey. Fortunately the present owners love animals and run a bed and breakfast advertised on cards at the lock. Just out of Uxbridge is an imposing blue bricked railway viaduct .
We also passed Hillingdon Narrowboat Association. This is where one of the boats we locked with earlier in the week came from. The HNA specialise in low cost community hire.
We stopped at Uxbridge Boat Centre to fill up with diesel.
This is the yard where Hallmark was ‘stretched to 50 feet’, totally overhaul, fitted out and repainted about 12 years ago.
Alan Boswell the owner is in the yard and comes over to inspect Hallmark. He is impressed at how she looks after all this time!
At Cowley Lock a British Waterways team were in action.
As well as shutting gates and even winding a paddle or too for Hallmark, they were actually trying to improve water supply and were clearing sluices and the run off which were clogged with weed. After Cowley there is a long pound. If we were going to central London we would get lock free all the way to Camden.
At Cowley Peechly Junction the Slough Arm slips off through the old brick fields to Slough. There is also a new marina here just below where the Paddington Packet Boat Service ran in times gone by.
Soon after this Maggie decides she needs a ‘bit of shut eye’ amazingly she sleeps on the deck with the back cover as her pillow. She sleeps with Hallmark’s engine throbbing away under her for well over an hour. The West London we know and love unravels as the canal goes through West Drayton Hayes and Slough. Things have changed a great deal since we were last here. There has been a tremendous regeneration especially with housing.
In Hayes there are now some enormous blocks right along the canal bank.
All looked quite as Hallmark approached Bull Bridge and the Paddington Arm. Hallmark was about 35 yards off the blind junction and out pops two boats in tandem and they began making the sharp right hand turn to Uxbridge and beyond.
There is time to stop of course and a few shouts were exchanged to check whether any more boats were following. Yes, there was one more! A beautiful tiny 25 foot narrow boat materialised . Hallmark was on its way again There was now about an hour to Norwood Top lock. Where I though we might end Friday.
The residential boat area below Tesco seems to have a number of vacant places and some of the double decker homes seems to have gone..
As we head through the outskirts of Slough the old pubs are still there. The Grand Union, the Old Oak Tree and looking sad The Lamb.The houses line the bank
The aggregates depot between Bridges 196 and 197 is in regular use by boats
Adelaide Dock is no longer the home of a hire fleet but it is in good use by British Waterways.
Then we encounter the famous Three Bridges. Here a road crosses the canal simultaneously as the canal crosses a railway. This was one of Brunel's last engineering feats!
As we approach Norwood Top lock we are joined by Little Gypsy, a 50 footer heating for the IWA show at Beale Park. They are intending to get to Brentford Thames lock tonight. So Maggie is game and we join them.
Hallmark has done and its coming up to half past four. so it looks like we will be locking till late.
I’m pleased as I might have had to do the flight alone on Saturday.
Norwood Top Lock is easy. The mechanisms for the paddles have been freshly greased.
But when we get Lock 92 filled we cannot shift the top gate. Even a passing cyclist who lends his weight gives up and cycles on. Eventually it does shift
With a good routine going we make it through some of the flight in under 10 minutes a lock, Others are terribly slow. Filling the last few gallons takes an age.
At Lock 92 filled we cannot shift the top gate. Even a passing cyclist who lends his weight gives up and cycles on. Eventually it does shift
How Brentford has changed.
Expensive apartments line the run into the double chambered Brentford Gauging Lock.
Great news…………. it is electric and so now winding and soving
The now lock is overlooked by a Holiday Inn
Picking up the crew after the lock is not easy and Little Gypsy breaks her cratch on the hotel pontoon.
The tide is very, very low and there is no flow from the Brent. This is great after a very long day!
So we take the final set of bends down to Thames Lock with ease.
How different to that trip we the ‘Battle of Brentford’ when the current was so strong we seemed to surf through the residential boats
There is room ‘on the wall’ above Brentford Thames Lock. We tie up with loose ropes (to be ready for the in-coming tide) to the mooring bollards and clear up the stuff on the deck and put on the front cover.
We take a quick walk to check the tide timetable and when there is locking out on Saturday. There is absolutely no water at all in Brentford Creek between the lock and the Thames. It is a ‘low as it goes’ tide. There is a three hour slot for locking out on Saturday but no locking out on Sunday due to the state of the tides.
We are hungry and tired and quickly head off for a meal in Brentford. It could be The Weir Inn or La Rosetta, the Italian on Brentford High Street. A great meal!
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