Page published 17 May 2023
Day 1 - Saturday 12 July 2003
Before you move on to read the bulk of this page you might find a bit of history of interest where I describe the Background to this cruise. For me, at least, it was an event very much of its time.
Lancaster
However it came about, it was on Saturday 12 July in 2003 that I drove from West Norfolk to Lancaster to take part in this section of Neil's tour. Earlier nb Earnest had made it through the newly opened Standedge Tunnel on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. I joined at the point when the return to the main canal network was to take place via the newly opened Ribble Link.
I arrived in Lancaster at about midday. Initial greetings were exchanged with Neil and Martin Clark. Martin had been aboard for a while and like everyone else I met that week stayed on after I left on the following Friday. It soon emerged that the boat needed provisioning for the crew that was to be aboard during the rest of the week. As I had a car and the nearest supermarket was some distance away I drove Martin there while Neil continued with what I was told was Neil's annual "Autoglim" of the boat.
Before travelling I had checked that I would be able to leave my car in a multi-story car park and the plan was to return to Lancaster by train to collect it when it was time to leave for home. However, before parking it, I did one more journey to pick up Molly Mockford from the train station. Perhaps wisely, she had opted travel by train for the journey from West Sussex.
©2003 Neil Arlidge
It's about 15:40 and nb Earnest departs its Lancaster mooring. The Water Witch Pub is seen in the background.
Once the four of us were on board and with all bar the swan neck gleaming to Neil's satisfaction, we cast off from their Lancaster mooring at around 15:35 and my trip began.
It seems that Molly changed T-shirt within 25 minutes of our departure as the first photo I took shows her in a yellow one. I had only recently bought my first digital camera. In those days most models had a small amount of internal memory and up till planning for this trip I had relied on that. However, I knew I needed more storage on this trip so had bought a 64Mb "smartcard", the largest the camera would take and for the first time I had EXIF data to tell, to the second, when shots were taken.
Martin Clark is on the helm. Molly, it seems, has been browsing a copy of "Canal Boat" magazine while Neil rests beside his Nikon camera, which will later get a soaking.
An hour later we were passing Ellel Village Hall to see the splendidly English scene of a village cricket match taking place. From there you sweep round a corner to pass under Bridge 86 where you encounter Galgate Marina.
Cricket is being played at Ellel Village Hall as we cruise by just after 17:00.
Galgate Marina was a revelation to me. It reminded me of a Broads or Great Ouse marina. I had never seen so many plastic boats on an English canal. Current satellite images show the place almost totally dedicated to narrowboats with just one pontoon where plastic boats are berthed.
Galgate Marina. Current satellite images of this part of the marina show all bar one of the plastic boats gone, now replaced by narrowboats.
Swinging my camera around and taking a second view of the marina still all you see are GRP boats. Now there's just one pontoon set up to take short wide-beam boats. The rest of the southern half of the marina is also set up for narrowboats.
Only the furthest bay in this photograph at Galgate is retained for small plastic cruisers these days. Presumably the result of 20 years of the Ribble Link being open.
I have forgotten what lay beyond the two bays which I photographed. Today's satellite images show almost 200m of diagonally set pontoons where short wide-beam boats are berthed, suggesting that there's still a good proportion of boats that never travel onto the wider canal network. I fancy I might have taken a photograph of some of them as well had they been there at the time.
Once past the point where the current berths cease it's only another 150m before Junction Bridge and the top of the Glasson Branch where we were to turn.
At 17:12 we reach Junction Bridge, where will will turn to make the descent to Glasson Dock.
The Glasson Branch and Basin
You can't even clear the bridge before you encounter the first lock on the branch and the first we had encountered in the five and a half miles since leaving Lancaster. Conveniently, for those starting from the Lancaster Canal, it is numbered "One". Nicholson's Guide notes that there are six wide locks on the branch "whose bottom gates feature the same excellent type of sliding paddles seen on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal". Certainly, it was the first time I had seen that type.
Barely has the turn been made onto the Glasson Branch and you find yourself confronting the first lock gates.
At this point Neil lifted a Brompton cycle out onto the bank and started to unfold it. His record of the event records it as being "the WWW's new foldy-cycle". I recall that, in this context, the abbreviation refers to his wife, and might have guessed that the other words were for "wonderful" and "Wendy", but the name is Linda, so I remain confused.
Neil prepares his wife's Brompton bike for lock wheeling.
I was mightily impressed. So much so that the following year I bought one, for returning to the car at the end of a day's cruising aboard My SeaHawk. According to Neil's notes he then cycled off into the sunset, although he put it more accurately as "lock wheeled down the 6 original Lanky style locks - large fixed windlasses and scissor gate paddles, all locked up with BW padlocks".
The Lock on the Glasson Branch have an unusual sliding paddle mechanism.
he also reported that a "roving BW locky was surprised, but glad we were going down. He said that the locals hardly ever bother and before the Ribble Link there was only around one boat a month using the locks".
Glasson Basin
We reached Glasson Basin at 18:51 according to the EXIF data in my photograph and took a tour around the basin before mooring, although Neil's report on u.r.w suggested that it was an hour later. As my earlier photos tie in with Neil's timing, I suspect he may have been referring to the time when we left Earnest to go to the pub rather than arrival in the basin.
As we enter Glasson Basin we pass an impressive yacht moored there.
Further into the basin and you get a better impression that you are in a true marine environment.
We swing round the end of the pontoons to get a better view of the range of craft berthed in the basin.
At least half of the boats appear to be large yachts capable of ocean voyages.
After the tour of the basin we moored. I took a photo of our party some fifty minutes later, at 19:42, as we were about to go ashore to eat and explore the area.
We moored for the night and prepared to go ashore in search of a bite eat and explore the area.
Exploring Glasson
A hundred yards from where we moored for the night was The Victoria Inn. I don't recall drinking there but Neil reports that it "was our chosen venue again". Again, because he'd visited a few days earlier on his way up to Lancaster and beyond. This time he reported, "Not too full, nice pint of Thwaites Lancaster Bomber and OK food".
©2003 Neil Arlidge
The Victoria Inn, a photo that Neil took on his visit a few days earlier on his way up from the Ribble Link to Tewitfield.
On leaving the pub the first picture I took was of the Lockkeeper's Rest. Neil spoke fondly of it and his photo, taken on 5 July, showed it was a busy place, and not the rather forlorn venue that we found.
The Lockkeeper's Rest, photographed at 21:19 and seemingly just catching the last rays of sunset.
From there we crossed the bridge that runs over the lock sited between the outer commercial dock and Glasson Basin and then proceeded to walk up Tithebarn hill.
The view from the bridge over the lock looking towards Glasson Basin
We walked up the hill, I almost wrote climbed, but thought those not from Norfolk might not consider it a climb, as far as the junction with Bodie Hill and there I took a photo of the sunset.
The large building on the horizon silhouetted by the sun is the Heysham Nuclear Power Station. I was surprised how well the flash in my 1.3megapixel camera illuminated the road signs.
Swinging round to the west I also took a photo back towards the basin. For a relatively crude camera I was surprised how well lit a photo taken at 21:33 could be. All the images here are unprocessed beyond being a little reduced in size.
Glasson Basin taken from Tithebarn Hill at its junction with Bodie Hill
Returning down the hill we crossed the lock again and my last image of the night shows the moon over the basin. It's an image I've included in my "Today's Image" collection since the "GregAfloat" site was created in 2008 and I've long regretted not having got round to adding a report of this trip to the site.
It's 22:03 and here we see the moon over Glasson Basin, a long time favourite image of mine.
The story continues with a report of the events of Sunday 13 July...