Narrowboat Eileen Dover: Up in the clouds

Tuesday 30^th July

Immediately ahead of us today was the Bosley Flight, twelve locks taking us back down 110 feet towards the Trent and Mersey canal. Compared with Marple, where sixteen locks raise the canal 208 feet, this isn’t quite as steep, but it is still a fairly challenging bit of work.

Looking down Bosley Flight from the top

Before we got there we had to traverse a lift bridge (electrically operated, no hand-cranking like the Peak Forest) and then before the locks we stopped at a water point to refill. I have never seen a water point that filled so fast, we did ¾ of the tank in about 15 minutes, many places that would have been half an hour and more.

After that we started on the locks. I had been nervous all the time we were filling in case someone came past us, because following someone through a set of locks makes things very much slower and harder – you have to fill each one again before you can go in. But nobody had appeared. However, as I cycled forward to the first lock, having left Loulie to bring the boat up, I saw another narrowboat emerging from a side arm parallel to the lock, and facing down hill. However when I asked him if he was going down the flight he said no, he was just winding – and proceeded to turn very neatly in a space I would not have thought feasible.

So that meant we were at the front of the queue going down, and to make things even better there was a boat coming up Lock 1 (the top lock) so all the locks behind ought to be full and set for us. There was a vlockie helping them, and apparently he had worked all the way up with them, so I was hopeful. However when we had put Loulie through the lock he said goodbye, so maybe his shift was ending.

Bosley Flight

I was on the bike, cycling forward to get each lock ready to work Loulie through. The locks are all in very good repair, the gates are tight and all the sluices work well. However the design is poor for a single person operating the locks, because there are two top gates and two sluices, one each side, but the only bridge is at the bottom of the lock, beyond the lower gates. So in order to open the top gates you have to open one, then walk all the way down the lock, across the bridge and up the other side. When the boat comes in you then close one gate, climb over the boat to the other side, and close that gate. By contrast at Marple there is just one top gate, with the handle on the towpath side, and the sluice winding mechanisms are also both on that side – so you never need to cross the lock at all.

All this was just grit, thinking that it could have been a little easier, but we proceeded smoothly down the locks, with Bosley Cloud looming in the distance ahead. However after we had done six of the twelve, the Cloud disappeared behind the clouds, thick black rainclouds, and we were suddenly in torrential rain, with occasional high-level summer thunder. I was reminded of Ginger Rogers’ pointing out that she did everything the Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. So doing the second six locks was just like doing the first six, but in pouring rain and heavy wet weather gear.

When we came out of the bottom lock the rain had abated somewhat, and we moored just below the lock point and had a slightly belated lunch. We debated whether we might stay there for the night, as the forecast was for more rain, but the constant traffic and bustle at the lock would have disturbed the dogs incessantly. So we unmoored, and carried on for just a mile or so. We tried a couple of possible spots, but they had wide ledges to keep us away from the bank. Eventually we found a spot, very remote, and settled down to wash and dry some of the wet clothes and dog beds that we have accumulated.