Gone gongoozling

It wasn’t painful, we had to drive more than 100 miles and it took more than an hour for it to happen, but it was really good!

We made our transformation at Foxton Locks – a unique series of ten stepped canal locks joining the Grand Union and Leicester canals.

Gongoozlers are the narrow boat equivalent of train spotters – hanging around on canal banks waiting for the craft to chug by. We hit gongoozle gold,  arriving just in time to watch one boat coming down the locks and another coming up. A wider central lock allows them to pass each other at the halfway point. Right of way belongs to whoever gets there first apparently!

Foxton Locks is a marvel of engineering, joining two canal systems which were separated by a 75ft/23m drop. With a well practised crew on board, to fast crank the sluices, steer the narrow boat through and then close the sluice behind them, the trip through the 10 locks can take around 45 minutes.  In the demanding industrial age, that was deemed too lengthy, and a massive steam-driven boat lift was built on the side of the locks. It could winch four boats at a time from top to bottom much faster, but sadly, still not fast enough to compete with the steam trains, less than two decades later – whose superior speed and capacity rendered the boat lift redundant and it was removed. Happily, the locks are still busy and host many narrow boats and even more gongoozlers every day.

Foxton Locks is now a grade 1 listed structured – deemed to be so historically and architecturally important that it is fully protected. It is only used for pleasure these days, but it is still a real sight to see. We would not have known about this fascinating place if it had not been for a fellow traveller – Rachel Kerr – with whom we had swapped travel tips with in a carpark in the Lake District  a few weeks ago – thanks again Rachel.

We stayed not far from the Locks at Barford Top,  a livery yard and small campsite run by the lovely Wendy and Maurice. They gave us the most generous, cheery and chatty welcome to their home atop a hill, with spectacular views across the valleys.

The summery evenings were punctuated with lowing cattle, bleating sheep, the occasional burping horse chewing on the fence and the sound of our own voices – bliss.

The misty morning changed the outlook entirely, but was equally beautiful.

We headed off to visit friends in Wales, but took a detour to do one more thing that is as quintessentially English as bucolic country scenes and brilliant engineering feats – a row on the river at Oxford.

Coming next – even more Englishness in one of the country’s most famous “black and white” villages, living in gypsy wagons and flying high over Hereford. Stay tuned!