Hertfordshire – Narrowboat Firecrest

Whatever happened to Autumn

I’m sitting here frozen in, telling myself to get on with sharing another blog post before I forget where we have been. Family and friends have played a significant part in our gentle autumnal cruising, as we took advantage of several close train stations for visiting. We left Apsley mill with the leaves still green back in October.

During the next 10 weeks we have travelled all of 20 miles north through 40 locks, through rain, shine, wind, snow and ice. We spent an enjoyable two weeks in Berkhamsted

A lovely little town that has embraced the canal running through it, where commercial sheep dip was first created.

And has some real history to explore with its 11th Century castle ruins

Berkhampsted castle, and improvised cricket pitch

And its quirky but genuine Canadian Kwakiutl totem pole, given to the people of Berkhamsted as a thankyou for the kindness shown by John Alsford, a local business man who owned the timber yard where it stands (now a residential area)

And for the days when it rains so hard you’re glad you already live on a boat there’s the wonderful art deco Rex cinema, which has the comfiest seats I’ve ever enjoyed in a cinema as well as the best toilet graffiti

I went to see “Mrs Harris Goes to Paris,” a real feel good movie, And I took a trip to London to meet up with Amanda at the British Museum to look at the Egyptian artefacts

Me and Amanda outside the British Museum

We could easily have stayed put in “Berko”, we met friends, made new friends and thoroughly enjoyed our visit.

But it was time to move on and we found ourselves a wood to walk through. Even though it was now mid November there was still a lot of green to be seen in Ashridge Woods (easily reached from Dudswell mooring)

And it wasn’t just the leaves that were the wrong colour, when we got to CowRoast lock the water wasn’t just crystal clear, it had a blueish tinge to it, almost like an aquarium so clear that we could actually see the lock paddle mechanisms below the water level.

We had reached the top of the Tring Summit and we would now be descending along our route. But we planted our pins at Tring Resevoirs and settled down for another 14 day stay. (Our header photo) Lots of lovely walks around the area, and a reasonable bus service into Tring.

Knowing that Eric was in a nice place, (good internet, and plenty of solar) I jumped ship and caught the train up to the Lakes to have a week with mum, I also went to see my dentist, but didn’t confess to eating jam and scones or drinking creamy hot chocolate.

Threlkeld village hall cafe, The place to go just outside Keswick

And I think whilst I was in the Lakes, winter arrived

The view from my bedroom window back home

From a galaxy far far away, to somewhere beyond Watford

Cassiobury Park came from a large area of land that King Offa gave to the Abbey of St Albans in 793 but when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1539 , the estate became home to the Earls of Essex. (I always wonder why the aristocracy don’t live in the county of their title) However as times changed and fortunes were found and lost, parts and parcels of the huge estate were sold off . In 1909 Watford council bought the parkland that we are enjoying today. It really was a lovely place to cruise through,

At least that’s what Jar Jar Binks thinks, as areas of the woodland were used as the planet Naboo in the film Star Wars, The Phantom Menace. However the only menace we were in danger from was the crocodiles in the canal.

We moored up just beyond the current park outside the Grove Mill

and looking at the beautiful bridges the 4th Earl of Essex really did insist on the canal being an asset to his properties

Nowadays some bridges need to be a little more heavyweight, especially this one which carries the link road onto the M25

and it wasn’t long before we found ourselves cruising parallel to the bain of our past life, although its outlook from the canal was somewhat more tranquil

And the image of its mega structure, somewhat more impressive from below than above

So that was it, we had now been released from the inner circle, cruised past Watford, where we now officially back in the north?

From Hertford to Stortford

We managed to find the last available mooring in Hertford for 2 nights, so I could hop onto the train back into London to meet up with Amanda and a few friends. I’d have liked to explore Hertford a bit more but the need to run the generator, whilst being moored next to a block of flats isn’t neighbourly so we moved on.

Back the 6 miles through Ware and Stanstead Abbot,

to Feildes lock, and the confluence of the river Stort which becomes the Stort Navigation. In a matter of minutes we felt like we were in a completely different environment. Although the Stort was canalized in the 1760s, it still retains the characteristics of a rural river.

Its 14 miles of very pleasant cruising, although the 15 locks are a frustrating dimension, only 13 foot/4m wide, which makes them just a bit too narrow to take 2 narrowboats side by side, yet still requiring a double locks worth of water, and effort, but at least they are very pretty. And a local boater informed us that it is customary not to close the gates on exiting a river lock, which did make them a bit easier to work.

We meandered happily along enjoying the buildings along our way

Ducking under the overhanging willow trees, and infact narrowly escaping a potential catastrophe, as a large branch broke and fell into the canal seconds before we passed by. I was too shook up to take a photo, but we were lucky it had remained attached to the tree by a thin slither and blocked the towpath rather than the canal.

We enjoyed a few nights moored at Sawbridgworth, which is where I believe Beckingham Palace is, although the Beckhams no longer live there. All this lovely countryside isn’t the usually the first image that you think of when you realise we were cruising through Essex

But after a week of tranquillity we were back in Hertfordshire and moored at the end of navigation in Bishop’s Stortford

Bishop’s Stortford has been voted one of Britain’s best places to live, although it seemed nice enough, its not the first town that springs to my mind to claim this title. We arrived on market day, and I was amused to see the same Cheese and Pie man that regularly visits our home town in Suffolk. We had quite a good chat reminiscing about people in common that we knew.

(Heading photo north of Harlow Mill)

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