Colne Valley Beagles and other things of interest.: A FEW BITS AND BOBS.

I thought I would put the odd photo on here just to demonstrate the Blog is still active.

I wonder what is of interest to Argentina on here? Been quite a large flurry of views from there recently.

In May I went to Hebden Bridge by canal. There was a boat festival pending for historic boats but not until the following weekend, so I didn't see it but one or two boats appeared while I was in the vicinity.

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A couple of boats that came for the festival. Not sure how historic they are but they have a bit of the traditional shape and carry bits of canal ware on the cabin top. The trouble with Hebden Bridge is that the visitor moorings between Locks 8 and 9 by the park have underwater obstructions in places by the towpath and the fall of this short pound, due to boats leaving through Lock 8, can leave them hard aground and tilted over. When I left to go downstream a number of boats had gone down earlier, about seven of them, and taken a lot of water with them so the pound had dropped. Below it was even worse and on leaving Lock 8 my boat ran aground on a submerged lump of rock just outside the lock gates and from then on was slugging slowly along through mud until reaching lock 7.

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This boat came laden with canalalia to sell and with a fixation for brassware inside the boatman's cabin by the look of things.

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Moored in Sowerby Bridge basin and having a new silencer fitted to the exhaust by Shire Cruisers who run a fleet of fine hire boats there. LINK

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A common sight these days.

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Typical of our hilly area are houses on two levels. That stairway to heaven leads to the houses on a level with a road at the other side of them while the under dwellings entrance is from this side below.

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Ah! Aldgate, a real historic boat that has just left Lock 1 at the beginning of the Rochdale Canal at Sowerby Bridge and is in the 'pound' approaching Lock 2 waiting for it to be opened. Not the sort of boat one would normally see in this area and in its working life would probably tow a similar 'dumb' one behind known as a 'Butty'.

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Aldgate was built in 1936 by Harland and Wolf and is 71.5 feet overall. ALDGATE Info LINK This means it cannot travel to Hebden Bridge from its base in the Midlands from the Braunston area except by way of the west route and on the Rochdale Canal over the summit. The eastern route via the Calder and Hebble has shorter locks. Aldgate has just been on a quick trip down as far as Salter Hebble locks, which it would not be able to pass through, to overnight on the Halifax arm and is now on its way back to Hebden Bridge.

The tall thing on the skyline is Wainhouse Tower, a folly built on the edge of Halifax. Originally commissioned as a chimney for a local dyeworks it was never used and is regarded as one of Britain's finest follies. LINK

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Aldgate leaving Lock 2 at Sowerby Bridge and about to pass into the tunnel to go up the very deep Tuel Lane Lock, Lock 3/4, being a replacement for the original two.

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Another historic narrowboat built in 1936 turning into Sowerby Bridge Basin.

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A unique tug, White Heather, originally used for towing a string of refuse barges from Paddington to waste pits in West Drayton, Yeading and Hayes. LINK TO DETAILS

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The owner was a bit concerned about the draft of 3 ft being a bit deep for getting to Hebden Bridge. I wonder how he got on?

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Approaching Lock 2 and waiting until the crew got it set open.

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Purton 162 is now shorter than originally and with a newer cabin, now being 57 feet 6 inches, and so can use the Calder and Hebble Navigation. LINK to PURTON info

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Purton leaving Long Lees Lock 24 on the Calder and Hebble Navigation.

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I can't find anything about Millbury and I think it is 'of a style' but not historic.

So next to North Yorkshire

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Grosmont Station on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Pity the engine was the wrong way round. LINK to NYMR

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My grandfather took this glass slide of Staithes. So visiting Staithes I thought I would find the place and take a photo. LINK TO POST OF GLASS SLIDES

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I took this of the same place 100 years later and it is as near as I could get from memory of the same view. I can't figure out how he managed to get the headland showing unless the Cod and Lobster has been rebuilt a bit further to the left. I think they must have enlarged it using that little outbuilding as a base line but shifted it a bit more to the left. Being on the seafront it probably had damage from storms and was rebuilt. COD AND LOBSTER LINK

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High Sreet in Staithes

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A nice quiet mooring in Staithes. If you go there be prepared to walk down and back up a very steep hill! STAITHES HISTORY LINK

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Light relief.

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Whitby

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His and Hers. She rides the silver Goldwing trike and he the black one. I know because I met the owners in Helmsley on another day as they arrived to buy a fish and chip supper.

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Pickering Castle, or what's left of it. I guess a lot of the old local buildings and walls owe their existence to all the missing stone. Be prepared to be assailed by a selling pitch to join English Heritage at £8.75 a month by DD for two adults when you pay to go in if you don't belong!

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Scarborough. Apart from that big group of small children there having organised fun there was hardly a soul on the beach and it was a lovely day. Later the teachers who sorted those little children out and got them all up the road to the Spa building and to the toilets and then to the bus had a job and a half. One teacher thanked me for my understanding and I think she must have mistaken me for someone else.

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I wandered about along the walkways here waiting for some sun to be able take this picture and was conscious of a big bloke with a radio and with 'SBC' on the back of his yellow fluorescent vest, who seemed to be following me. Presumably that meant Scarborough Boat Club? There was the odd notice about reporting anyone who looked disturbed or something so perhaps he thought I might be tempted to take a dive off the deep end with the tide out. But maybe he was just checking the moorings.

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It surprised me how well this boat went with such a small outboard hung over the side.

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I suppose Health and Safety stopped the use of this fountain years ago. I can remember using the old drinking fountains there used to be but now never see. This had an evil looking yellow soup in the bowl.

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For Dr Who fans the Tardis has landed in Scarborough. As a matter of fact it has landed in Almondbury, Huddersfield too. There was once a much bigger one in the centre of Huddersfield and I once saw some 'cops' drag a bloke in and then drag him back out a bit later, when the 'Black Maria' came for him, looking rather worse for wear than when he went in. Must have fallen over. But that was in the good old days.

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Just a view of the harbour. Regal Lady is at the end and I wrote about her last year.

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Allegiance, a trawler based in Scarborough, is arriving to unload her catch. Looks a nice well kept boat. She was built in 1987 and was lengthened and modernised in 2011 by Parkol Marine in Whitby.

And then, just because I like these pics that are unconnected with the above -