Sunday 18 February 2007

Another old church

Slapton lock 30

The day started foggy which did not lift until mid morning. Eventually the sun broke through to give us another fine day.
Surprisingly there has only been 3 boats go through today. The first boat looked very sad in appearance being all covered in green algae and dirty. We were told that the boat was only 4 years old but it looked more like 40. Perhaps the gentleman had only just bought the boat because we found out later that he was not familiar with lock procedures.
About half an hour later we started to list to starboard and it was obvious that the pound was losing water. Shortly after this another boat came through also heading south. I spoke to the boatman who informed me that the previous boat had gone through locks 28 and 29 and left the top gates open and the bottom gates are leaking quite badly. Now we know where the water was going.
The third boat only went through lock 30 to the winding hole and returned to moor up just ahead of us.
He said he just wanted to get out in the sunshine for the week-end and would be going back to Linslade tomorrow.
After lunch Dot & I went for a walk into Slapton village to look for another 15th century church that we had read about. On the way we passed the farm we had spotted the previous day.

The farmer was rounding up the sheep, shepherds crook and all. The church turned out to be a bit of a let down as it was all locked up unlike All Saints at Marsworth.

The building itself was not in such a good condition either. It was interesting that some of the surnames on the very old grave stones we saw at Marsworth were evident here as well. I suppose communities were much closer in those days not moving far from their birthplaces.

No comments: