Great Museum

2 Locks 5 Miles. Mow moored at Appleton Road, Beeston.

This morning we all had different plans and went our own separate ways. Dot stayed on the boat setting up her new portable hard drive, Tracey went off to the Walkabout pub to watch the rugby on the wide screen TV. Sadly she had to wait until this afternoon for a delayed broadcast which was a disappointment as the South African's won in the final minutes.

As for me I was off to the toy and history museums next door to the castle. Due to staff shortages the toy museum was closed but I was told that it has been transformed with the ground floor now being a re-created Victorian classroom for school educational visit's. The toys have been moved upstairs with a small display now placed in the main museum.

The main museum which is in the old Brewers Yard tenement houses was probably the best local area museum I have seen. The displays of how people used to live, old shops including a grocer, complete with a list of allowable rations during the war, chemist, boot maker, barber, hardware and electrical shop with brilliant displays and explanations of what you were looking at. There is also a 9 minute video where the child actress is actually the great, great granddaughter of a woman that used to live in one of the houses. Once again the houses, like the Trip to Jerusalem Inn next door, are also built into the sandstone cliffs below the castle which surprised me. I will let the pictures tell the stories otherwise I will fill a book. Anybody planning to visit this museum should plan on spending a good couple of hours there to be able to take it all in. A good idea for a rainy day.

Victorian parlour.

Yes madam, that's all you are allowed.

The old chemist where potions were made on the premises.

Another piece of interesting history is that the Lace shop, see below, which was actually built elsewhere but painstakingly dismantled in 1976 and re-built and restored on its present sight. It is 1 of only 3 remaining buildings of its style in the Midlands whereas further south they are more common.

1303 locks, 1880½ miles, 43 Tunnels, 42 swing bridges and 19 lift bridges since Nov 2006

City of Caves.

Still moored at Sainsbury's, Nottingham Canal.

Today we started to explore the city of Nottingham, the home of lace and bicycle's. Wandering up through the city we came across the trams which run from the railway station to somewhere north of the city. They are very modern and not too unlike the trams in Amsterdam. I think a lot more city's need to look at re-introducing trams. There is so much to see and do here it's a job to know where to start.

Broadmarsh shopping centre was built 40 years ago on land which were the 18th century slums of the city. The houses,on Drury Hill and Narrow Marsh were probably state of the art when originally built, were built over the old cave network in which Nottingham's residents used to live and work for 1000 years. The caves are all man made carved out with crude tools and water. When the shopping centre was under construction it had been planned to fill in the caves but thankfully they were seen as part of the city's history and saved and Friends of the caves started doing guided tours in 1972. They are still being explored to this day with the possibility of opening more of them up for visitors.

The guided tour starts on the ground floor of the shopping centre and descends down below the concrete floor where in place you can see the underside of the flooring and pipe work for various facilities. There is also brickwork from the foundations and basements of the tenement housing (slums). The first cave does have access to the open air but is sealed off for security, it's just as well because it used to be a 16th century tannery. The complete tanning process used to take 18 months with hides being stored in pits of lime and some brew made from Oak bark which became tannin acid. The stench must have been horrendous but what was worse was that boy's as young as 8 years of age worked in the tannery and their life expectancy was no more than 20 - 25 years due to Tannin acid poisoning.

The caves were the homes and work places of hundreds of people first recorded by a Welsh monk in 900AD. Even in the times of the plaque or Black death they had their uses as a a crematorium to burn the diseased bodies and set up a leper colony outside the old castle walls which was basically the town in those days. During world war 2 they were used as air raid shelters where up to 6000 people could take shelter from the bombing raids. One such raid was on the Raleigh Bicycle factory which made munitions during the war. It took a direct hit and even though the workers, mainly women and girls were sheltering in the basement many of them were killed.

After this introduction to what lay beneath our feet it was off to the castle which is not really a castle in the true sense of the meaning as it was finally rebuilt as a museum. The history of the castle goes back to the 10th century and covers many reigning monarch's, some good and some not so good. It has been transformed many times from wooden structures to block and stone. It originally stood about 50 feet higher than the present building so would have been an impressive fortress.

While wandering through the various chambers displaying crockery, silverware and clothing through the ages we stumbled across a guided tour which we were unaware of so we just tagged on the end, rightly or wrongly. The young man taking the tour was very knowledgeable and humorous and made the tour very interesting. It was now revealed to us the many underground caves and passages below the castle and you were never quite sure where you would end up next.

Each section was under lock and key so we were let in and counted, taken through each area and then counted again upon exit so that nobody got locked in. We saw a huge cave which had been used as a kings wine and ale cellar,this would have fuelled some really big booze up's. Many kings used the castle as a banquet facility and many grand banquets and balls were held there. Another cave was the dungeon where Robin Hood was reputedly held on occasions. It must have been sheer hell in this cave as it was next to the bakery so the prisoners, who would have been fed stale bread and water could smell the odours of what ever was being baked for the resident's and guests of the castle. Torture without a doubt.

Another passage took us out onto the cliff face below the castle but still above the city and river where cannons were placed to bombard anybody trying to approach by water. A second tunnel took us down to road level which had been a river before being covered in a culvert under the roadway. Upon looking up at this point the castle was way,way above us. Another passage bought us out into a courtyard which housed the kitchen, slaughter house and horse carriage stables from where footmen where sent in to town to collect guests for banquets and the like. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable tour.

To top it off we were left outside the oldest (reputedly) Inn in England. It was renamed to Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem in 1189 after a Kings return from a crusade to the Holy Lands. From the outside the Inn looks as if it is built in front of the sandstone cliffs upon which the castle sits but it is actually just a facade as it is built into some of the caves. One bar in particular is just a sandstone cave with a 65 foot chimney tunnel reaching up from the ceiling. If you come to Nottingham you have to come and see this.

While walking back to the boat we heard many sirens coming towards us, thinking it may be the fire service we were surprised to see 4 police cars escorting a police prison van in very close formation. He must have been a very important prisoner or they were frightened that somebody was going to try and free him. Surely no criminal is worth wasting this amount of Police resources on.

Robin Hood Country.

0 Locks 3 Miles. Now moored by Sainsbury's Supermarket, Nottingham.

It was time to say Au Revoir to Derek and Christina upon N/b Kalimera as they plan to stay on at Beeston to be able to attend their son's graduation at Nottingham University. As for us we had to go into Nottingham to pick up Tracey from the railway station as she is staying with us for 5 days. On the outskirts of the city we saw sign's of the homeless with a couple of tents and piles of rubbish hidden away in some tree's. We moored up outside Sainsbury's supermarket and walked the 1/2 mile into town.

As we had time to spare we walked as far as the winding hole prior to the last lock which puts you back on the river Trent. We have seen the Fellows, Clayton & Morton building which is a museum which we will visit later, the refurbished BW building still emblazoned with BRITISH WATERWAYS. The trams were also of interest now running on part of the old Great Central railway, they certainly look very smart. At one of the bridge's below Castle lock we saw a black steel box against the bridge abutment with it's door ajar. Upon further investigation it turned out to be a water point which is not shown on any map book. The lock on the door had been smashed but the tap was dripping so presumably operational.

Old British Waterways Building

Down at the winding hole we saw a couple of drug addict's hiding in a corner on the opposite bank but they were not as secluded as they would have liked because we could see them quite plainly as they prepared to inject themselves with something or other.

The station was easy to find and Tracey's train was on time but she exited the station from a different entrance from where we were waiting but after a couple of phone calls we eventually met up.

Fellow Morton and Clayton Canal Museum

Tram running on the Great Central Railway line

This evening while doing a little bit of fishing off the back of the boat a Chinese couple and their son came over and spoke to me as they were very interested in the boat. They asked if they could have a look through the boat but I declined as I knew Dot was busy preparing dinner and wouldn't approve of the invasion. The husband was studying at the University and his wife and son and only been in the country for 2 days. In the end they settled for a photo of the wife and son with me on the back of the boat.

1301 locks, 1875½ miles, 43 Tunnels, 42 swing bridges and 19 lift bridges since Nov 2006

Stop Diesel Thief's

Still moored Beeston Lock, Beeston Cut, Nottingham Canal.

This morning we took a stroll down to the Beeston Marina who have a well stocked chandlery. On the shopping list were a new centre rope as one of the existing ropes has been shortened due to wear and tear, a new grease gun cartridge and a tin of stern gear grease and a security locking fuel cap if they had any. Well the first 3 were easily sorted but the locking cap was a bit of a problem. They had them in stock but I was unsure about the dimensions so we had to return to the boat and detach the existing cap for comparison. It turned out that the hole into the tank was only 4cm but the new fitting was between 5cm and 6cm.Well nothing for it but to purchase the new fitting and then set too and file the hole out. As the file was magnetic it attracted a lot of the filings and after I had finished I used my mechanics friend magnet which is great for retrieving nuts and bolts from awkward places to clean out any filings that had fallen into the tank. After doing about 50 drops into the tank and pulling out more and more metallic rubbish I eventually gave up as I considered that I had not produced this amount of filings and a lot of the rubbish had been in the tank since manufacture. The job took me longer than planned but a job well done. I just beat the heavy rain too.

Unfortunately it's not brass, but what's the most important?

Nottingham and Beeston Canal

14 days! This is a first, never seen a notice such as this before

Beeston Lock Cottage

The old original Lock chamber into the now un-navigable part of the River Trent

9pm at Beeston Weir, a lot calmer than earlier in the day I imagine.

So far, So Good

5 Locks, 7 ½ Miles. Now moored Beeston Lock, Beeston Cut, Nottingham Canal.

A sight unseen in New Zealand

As predicted the River Soar did come up overnight by about a foot but the BW guys arrived this morning to say it was safe to carry on although South bound boats would still have to use Kegworth shallow lock as a normal lock until water level's dropped and it could then remain open again. As we were North bound this was of no consequence to us.

With a name like this it must have some connection with New Zealand

The river was running faster than we had encountered before but it was an easy run down to the Trent Lock Junction where the Trent & Mersey, Erewash canal and the Nottingham Canal (River Trent) meet. The Cranfleet Cut, which is the first section of navigation bypassing the river Trent towards Nottingham takes you the first mile to Cranfleet lock where you drop back down onto the river which is as wide and fast as the River Thames. This took us 4 miles down to the Beeston Cut which is another navigation again bypassing an un-navigable section of the River Trent. This last section was also flowing fairly fast although not in flood.

As we approached Beeston lock we had to keep hard over to the left but even then we could still feel the pull of the weir off to our right. Thankfully the final approach to the lock is protected from the weir which incidentally is very, very wide. Immediately through the lock we were lucky to find 2 convenient sized moorings which will do us for the next couple of night's.

Now look at the name of this one, we knew there was one somewhere

1301 locks, 1872½ miles, 43 Tunnels, 42 swing bridges and 19 lift bridges since Nov 2006

Here we go again!!

Still moored at Kegworth.

It's 8.15pm and BW have just come along and closed the flood lock and advised all the boats on this mooring that they expect the river to rise overnight. It seems that there has been a lot of rain up river and it may only be a flash flood which may not last very long but they have to take precautions.

We are to be vigilant overnight and they will return tomorrow morning at 7.30am to give us a progress report. We seem to have been down this track before I recall.  Mutter,mutter, mutter. Just to add insult to injury it has just started to rain again.