Tuesday 6^th August 2019

We had a short run into Aldermaston where we went through the lock and called into the sanitary station in the pound between lock and lift bridge. Here we watered, dumped rubbish, emptied the loo and did a couple of washes, being well behind with the washing.

Once finished, we passed through the automatically operated lift bridge, halting lots of traffic on the busy road, before again stopping at Aldermaston Wharf to visit the chandlery.

There then came a succession of locks and swing bridges through delightful countryside, steadily descending towards Reading and the River Thames. While the railway had been a constant companion of the canal for the last 30 miles ever since Wooton Rivers, most of the time running right alongside the canal, roads had never much intruded. This all changed between Woolhampton and Lower Padworth, when the main A4 London to Bristol road ran alongside canal and railway, sometimes the three were within 50 yards of each other.

Towney Lock still has the remains of its turf lock next to the new lock built during the restoration of the canal. The lock remains but is no longer used, on exiting the new lock, we passed through the original lock, now heavily overgrown from the turf sides.

Towney Lock

The majority of the locks on the river section between Newbury and Reading have old water mills beside them, most now converted into luxury homes, keeping their privacy behind trees and landscaped gardens. When you do catch glimpses of them, each is in a beautiful setting. Tyle and Shenfield Mills were particularly attractive, especially Tyle Mill with the adjoining lock and swing bridge. The pillbox beside the sanitary station here, had been cleverly converted into the CRT information point.

There was much opposition to the construction of the early river navigations from mill owners who feared for their water supplies and provision had to be made for supplying the mills. Even so, there were many cases of sabotage from mill owners during the building of these early navigations.

Ufton Lock was one of the locks that was dispensed with during the restoration of the K&A and, although the lock remains, it is ungated. At the adjoining, automatically operated swing bridge, disaster ensued. Whenever we pass through a lock gate, swing or lift bridge, I always call to Brenda to start shutting it in anticipation of where the boat will be when it closes. Consequently, the gate or bridge will be closing behind, as the boat passes through. I completely misjudged Ufton Swing Bridge, being convinced, as was Manny, that the bridge had opened in one direction, when in fact, it had opened in the other. As I called to Brenda to push the button to close the bridge, it started to close in front of the boat. Although avoiding action was taken, it was too late and the corner of the bridge deck slammed violently into the side of the boat and spun it around with the bow hitting the bridge landing hard.

I felt absolutely sick.

While the damage inside the boat was confined to a few broken ornaments that had been thrown off shelves, the damage outside was much worse. Where the bridge made contact with the cabin side, there is a deep gouge in the paintwork and a dent, narrowly missing the Bridge Street logo. Marks and scratches to the hull sides are inevitable and unavoidable, hence the fitting of rubbing strakes, but damage to the cabin side, through misjudgement, is totally unacceptable.

Enough said.

The offending Ufton Swing Bridge

At Sulhamstead Lock, the navigation became surrounded, on both sides, by flooded gravel pits that ran for over the next 3 miles. It seemed surreal at times, having huge expanses of water on both sides, separated only by the towpath on one side, and a small embankment on the other.

The last few locks were shared with another boat who continually roped and tied the boat in the lock, forward and aft. I have always considered this to be a dangerous practice. If an owner does feel the need to rope his boat in a lock, it should either not be tied, tied with sufficient slack or continually monitored. This was demonstrated when the rope became tight and unnoticed by the owner. I called out a warning but the rope had become too tight to undo. After some confusion, the paddles were closed but by this time the boat was hanging about 12ins in the air. It was an anxious few moments until the water level in the lock had been raised sufficiently for the boat to refloat.  

Garston Lock, with a pill box at either end, is the other surviving turf sided lock and, as with Monkey Marsh Lock, was difficult to negotiate, but only right that at least some of the locks were left in their original design.

Garston Lock

Theale Swing Bridge

The kids operated Theale Swing Bridge between them while we passed on to Sheffield Lock. We were lucky enough to find a mooring beside the Cunning Man pub at Burghfield Bridge. The scratch to the cabin side was sanded and primed, it looks awful. We adjourned to the pub until it started to lightly rain, an unusual occurrence. While sitting in the pub garden, a boat passed so fast down the line of moored boats, it was difficult to comprehend what you were seeing. I had heard the boat coming from quite some distance away and, although many of the boaters were shouting at him, he continued at his speed with an actual bow wave preceding him, he was going so fast, and a total disregard for the boats he was passing. A private boat named Absolutely from Bristol, shame on you, and no doubt you would be the first to shout at any hire boat that passes going too fast.      

Weather: hot and sunny again. Rain in the evening and throughout the night.

Day Total: 8 locks; 7 miles; 0 Tunnels; 5 Swing Bridges; 1 Lift Bridge; 0 Boat Lift; engine running hours 7.9

Overall Total: 649 locks; 1132 miles; 49 tunnels; 57 Swing Bridges; 6 Lift Bridges; 2 Boat Lifts; engine running hours 727.1hrs