10 locks, and 8.5 miles. Now moored at Roydon on the Stort Navigation.
The day was overcast but warm when we set off this morning. We only travelled a short distance to Sawbridgeworth to begin with as we planned to stop and do some sight seeing around this very old town. There are information boards around the town giving details of things of interest in the street concerned. There is so much history going back to 1066 and a lot of history dating back to the 1200's. It was certainly educational reading the information boards.
Roydon Mill apartments
The towns history with the Lee and Stort navigation's goes back to the mid 1800's when there was malthouses and granaries operating in the town but the roads or tracks were so bad that in winter it became impossible to move anything in or out of town due to flooding. The navigation was a blessing which opened up a whole new trade with London and beyond. Eventually of course the coming of the railway was the demise of the navigation but today it's primary purpose is flood control.
Lovely new towpaths on the River Stort
One of the very low bridges on the Stort
How low can you go?
After a good look around we moved on not being quite sure how far we would travel because being a warm autumn day there were quite a few week-end boaters on the move. This actually worked in our favour with locks being set in our favour and with some of the other crews helping we made good time and travelled further than we expected. Today we spotted our fourth grass snake swimming in the river. A bit late in the season we would have thought. Its amazing most people we have spoken to here have never seen a snake and in the last 6 months we have seen four - amazing.
These squirrels are following us around
756 locks, 1051.5 miles, 29 Tunnels, 39 swing bridges and 19 lift bridges since Nov 2006
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