A Toe In The Chesterfield

We were booked to go out of Torksey Lock at about ten o'clock on the Glorious Twelfth. The weather certainly was glorious; blue skies, bright sunshine and enough of a fresh breeze on the river to help moderate the heat. We moved down to the service facilities by the lock landing about nine o'clock and I went to check in with the lockkeeper.

The trip down from Cromwell Lock had been quite straightforward and getting into Torksey Lock via a long, deep channel, out of the main current, had presented no difficulties, so we were fairly relaxed about the trip ahead. When I spoke to the lockkeeper, however, he asked me if we had been on this trip before. When I said "no" he asked me to wait and then taking me to his little office, he proceeded to draw me a diagram of the approach to West Stockwith.

The Trent At West Stockwith Lock - Looking Downstream

This lock goes straight off the Trent at an angle, as you approach it from upstream. It has a sandbar just outside and the river shoals from the far side to about halfway across. We would be carried down by the ebb tide, with a strong current from behind us. Therefore, we would need to go past the lock, turn back against the current, force our way back upstream, being sure to stay at least a boats length from the bank and not be more than half-way towards the other side. We should then watch the Lockkeeper for directions as to exactly where to bring our bow towards the upstream side of the lock mouth. At his signal we would then have to apply full rudder and maximum throttle to turn the boat into the lock itself. All of a sudden, a pleasant cruise in the sunshine was beginning to sound like a major feat of skill and daring!

While we absorbed this new information, we moved into the lock and the keeper let us down to the channel below so that we could wait on the pontoon there until the tide was right, which he said we would easily see but should certainly be about ten-fifteen. We had no idea what we were looking for to know if the tide was right but convinced ourselves that at ten-fifteen we could see the water starting to go the other way, downstream, so we cast off and drove out of the protected channel into the main river.

We were certainly swept downstream, alright. The swirling water was exhilarating and even a little scary, at first but it was pretty much as we anticipated and we steadily became more comfortable with it. What we hadn't expected was the amount of large, solid branches and lumps of wood being carried down around us and often drifting across our path.

Some Of The Debris On The Trent Outside Torksey Lock

Apparently, this is quite normal and much of it has been floating back and forth out there with the tide for years. The debris thinned out a bit after a while and we adjusted to the conditions, following the navigation charts again to try and pick out the landmarks along the banks and veer back and forth around the sand banks and mud shoals.

Along the banks there seemed to an endless line of fisherman, all with elaborate arrays of equipment, which they could bring with them because, above each little encampment, there was almost always a white van of some description parked on top of the flood bank. This has to be why it is so hard to get a reliable tradesperson to do a job in a reasonable time. Instead of plumbing or tiling or wiring something together, they have all gone fishing. Presumably, they don't need the money they could make by working on a Friday.

The only town we passed on the way was Gainsborough. There is a floating pontoon there, underneath a very high wall and near the huge jetties to which the commercial freighters tie up. You can moor there and go up into the town but it doesn't seem to be a comfortable position with the boat left subject to the fluctuating tides and changing levels and it certainly wasn't recommended in any of the guides we use.

As instructed, we called ahead to the lock as we passed under the M18 road bridge, about half an hour before we would expect to reach West Stockwith. In all, it took nearly three hours to get there and start the series of manoeuvres required for entry into the chamber, which Paul, the lockkeeper, had empty and open ready for us. By now, the current was a little less fierce, so the turn was quite straightforward and driving back into it actually helped with the control. There seemed to be a very precise point in the lock mouth we had to aim for before getting the signal to go hard right and drive in. We made it in okay and the keeper gave us an eight out of ten for the effort so it must have been alright but you could certainly feel the current trying to push you in the wrong direction as you turned in and it would be easy to find yourself in the wrong place. Later I found this video of someone who clearly did know what they were doing: How An Expert Tackles West Stockwith - really something to aspire to!

As the lock lifted us up to the West Stockwith basin that was quite enough for one day. Paul pointed out some uprights protruding from the water on the other side of the basin, which he said we should tie up to. It was an odd arrangement with the stern on to the wharf and the centre line tied to a moving ring on the pole. With our configuration it was really awkward to get on and off the boat and could really only be done by stepping on to the boat next door. Still, it was only for one night, so we would manage well enough.

Stockwith Basin is a small pool with a range of features. Where we had been directed to moor, on the north side, there is a hire boat operator and it is unclear if all the berths there belong to them or not. Certainly, no-one challenged our presence there and as far as we could see, there was only one space on the official CRT visitor mooring by the exit to the west and that was already taken. Opposite us and to the east of the lock there were customer service facilities and a slipway, as well as a couple of what seemed to be long-term moorings along that side. The West Stockwith Yacht Club occupies the south side, just beside the lock, with a quite extensive clubhouse and moorings both in the basin, itself, and extending through the bridge, out of the basin and all along the offside of the canal for about half a mile. All in all, there is a lot going on in a tight space and it is hard to tell who is entitled to what exactly.

To the north of the basin, across the road, there is the Waterfront Inn with a very large caravan site behind it. On a hot, August Friday the site was already packed with weekenders and holidaymakers, so we could expect the pub to be pretty busy.

It was still only one o'clock when we arrived and very hot. I went for a walk down the canal towpath to the first set of locks at Misterton, a place Sue and I can't help thinking of as the home of the Mysterons. It is actually a rather nice village with decent visitor moorings, a Chinese takeaway and a large Co-op store with excellent air conditioning, as well as a decent pub. They also had a nice Jubilee mural on an apparently abandoned building between the Youth Centre and the Library.

Jubilee Mural Smartens The Place Up.

Having had a stroll around the village I followed a footpath north and east towards the River Idle. This fast-flowing river is still officially navigable but with the huge sluices near the mouth of the river where it empties into the Trent, about three-quarters of a mile east of West Stockwith Lock, it isn't easily accessible.

Huge Complex Of Sluices And Flood Defences On The River Idle

It requires extensive advance notice to the Environment Agency who charge a considerable fee for each transit of the channel provided. These days, then, it is mostly about water management and drainage. There was a useful information board about the history of the area and the village right beside it.

Helpful Information Board

Following the banks of the river brought me into the centre of West Stockwith village from where there is a good path along the bank of the Trent back to the basin.

West Stockwith Village

Saturday morning surprised us with a thick mist over the basin.

Unexpected Mist Across West Stockwith Basin

That soon burned off for another blazing hot day and we eventually set out down the Chesterfield Canal. We had to negotiate our first couple of locks on the way. Recognisable as locks, they are still somehow unique. There were locks to undo on the paddles and they were wide enough for two boats, although it is a narrow canal. We were lucky in that "Enigma" had seen us coming and waited for us to arrive at the first lock. Then, although he stopped there, when we got to the top lock, "Gabriel" was just about to come down and let us come in before filling the lock themselves.

We stopped at Misterton and got some shopping, including some home-made pies from the family butcher there, so traditional that there was even a strict queuing system outside the shop on a busy Saturday morning - one in, one out. We carried on after lunch to a forty-eight hour mooring marked on the map at Walkeringham. We weren't yet confident as to how the Chesterfield was maintained but the mooring was there, with rings and otherwise unoccupied, in the middle of nowhere, so lovely and peaceful.

Nice Isolated Mooring for our first night on the canal proper

Our impressions of the first day on the canal were very positive. The countryside was beautiful,

Our view for the evening

with good views and a varied landscape, the water was crystal clear and we have never seen so many fish, of all shapes and sizes, on a genuine, man-made, canal.

This Monster Was Just Swimming Around The Basin

The clarity of the water also exposed the amount of weed growing towards the light. There was a lot of it and more floating on the surface but we had not suffered very badly with it fouling the propellor, as some others had reported. I took Archie for a walk in the afternoon, taking in a stretch of the Cuckoo Way in a circuit round the farmland and back to the boat but it was too hot to go too far. On the way back down the towpath we passed the new marina being developed on the site of the old brickworks, which appears to have been in the works since twenty fifteen.

The Piling For the new marina at Walkeringham

We only saw one guy working on it and it seemed likely to take a very long time to finish. Some local residents had clearly already found themselves waiting longer than they had expected.

So Tired - Tired Of Waiting

Before we left West Stockwith, we checked with the lockkeeper on the tides for the next leg our trip down the Trent. Taking account of where we were due to leave the boat at the end of August, we made a booking to go back out of West Stockwith the following Friday, the nineteenth of August, at about two o'clock. Once we moored up, we also set about sorting out some of the admin for what was going to be our first trip abroad since both Brexit and Covid, as well as the war in Ukraine. With those things in the mix and the associated rise in the cost of living, we shouldn't have been surprised to find that everything was costing a lot more than we remembered. It was interesting to think how much harder it would have been to arrange things if we couldn't do it all online these days.

A much lighter mist on Sunday morning burned off very quickly leaving a hot, sticky day with nothing in the way of breeze to cool us off. We set off about ten o'clock and the shallow, narrow canal made for a rather slower pace than normal and an unusually long cruise for us of five and half hours.

Shallow and narrow most of the way

It continued to be a very beautiful and peaceful canal and we hardly passed anyone all day. We only encountered a couple of locks on the way and passed through Drakeholes Tunnel, which is not long but has a very tight right angle turn to negotiate as you emerge from the southern portal. There are no villages or settlements on the way until you get to Clayworth, where the site of the Worksop & Retford Boat Club also hosts the CRT facilities for passing boaters. The club mooring starts well before a right angle turn and continues a long way beyond it. In all there are over a kilometre of boats moored here. We had been asking about getting diesel at West Stockwith, which houses a similar number of vessels. It seems there was someone who operated a small mobile bowser there but had given it up some months earlier. While we were filling up with water, I spoke to the club caretaker to ask where all these boat owners filled their fuel tanks on the Chesterfield Canal. Apparently, there really is now nowhere supplying diesel on the whole navigation. If you keep your boat there you have to fetch fuel in yourself, in jerry cans, filled at a standard roadside petrol station. It is always nice to keep the tank full but having established that, I was pretty confident that we had plenty to get us to the next place where we were sure we could fill up directly into the tank.

We carried on into the afternoon and finally met another boat, for the first time on this fine Sunday. "Sweet Charity" was coming towards us as we negotiated the steepest and narrowest cutting we had seen all day. There was an opening in the reeds on our right and we moved up and into it to let them past, only to find ourselves firmly grounded in the mud by the time they had come through. They were good enough to stop and see if we needed a tow but a bit of strenuous pushing and shoving with the twelve-foot barge pole got us moving in the end.

"Sweet Charity" Moving On

We were very close to our intended mooring at this point and really quite glad to get there and tie up for the day.

The place we had settled on was not our original choice. We had hoped to moor at Hayton, by The Boat Inn. When we got there, however, although there was a good wharf there, we found that there was no mobile signal at all and the pub was closed down, having left a rather cryptic message on their website thanking their past customers but regretting that the local community had not supported them enough. We moved on half a mile to the adjoining village of Clarborough where there was another mooring, this time with a decent signal, also by a pub. Sadly, this one, too, had long since closed and was in the process of being turned into a private residence. Not to be beaten, Archie and I took a walk down the towpath and across by Clarborough Church

Clarborough Church

to find the King's Arms on Main Street. On the way back we found a really nice park and wildlife reserve beside the canal immediately opposite our mooring. A great place to take Archie for a run in the morning.

Monday was another hot, airless day until later in the afternoon. We spent some of the morning doing maintenance and cleaning round the boat before taking Archie over to the park and then preparing to leave. We had pushed on to Clarborough on Sunday specifically to be a short run from Retford. We had quite a debate about whether we wanted to moor in the town, go through to get out of town and moor up beyond and if so, how far or whether to go in, turn round and come straight back out again. The real certainty was that we would want to stop at the Asda supermarket by the canal in Retford as we were running low on supplies. A lot depended on whether we thought Retford, itself, would be a comfortable place to stop or if it might be a town to avoid. We got going and covered the remaining three miles, passing through the charmingly named Whitsunday Pie Lock The legend has it that when the canal was being built the lady who lived at the cottage baked a pie and served it to the navvies who were building the lock and working on Whitsunday. Hence the lock was named this way. It sounds a good tale, though some maps showing a Whitsunday Pie Field pre-date the building of the canal.

We then had to get through Retford Town Lock, before mooring up outside Asda to do the shopping. At the Town Lock we found a trio of local boys who were clearly at a loss as to how to spend their summer holiday. They were cheeky and a bit silly, as well as seeming strangely ignorant about the lock if they did live nearby, as seemed to be the case. They didn't seem like any kind of threat, however, and the place itself didn't seem as run down and derelict as we had thought it might.

While Sue was getting the shopping Archie and I had a look at the mooring options ahead and it seemed as though we could moor on the aqueduct above King's Park. Having got the groceries on board we decided we would go on up through West Retford Lock, just around the corner. Through a bridge, just above that, was a winding hole, so we would turn around there and come back to moor on the aqueduct. The winding hole was so close that we decided we could just leave the top gates open and come straight back in again. Of course, having seen no boats moving at all for the whole day, it was only to be expected that "Enigma", with whom we had shared our first lock on the Chesterfield, should round the bend below, just as we were about to leave at the top. He would, of course, want to close and empty the lock. We explained what we were planning and he was kind enough to offer to wait until we had finished our manoeuvre. However, we have long learned that winding is something best done in private and without an audience so, instead, we helped him through the lock and on his way before proceeding. Unobserved, we accomplished the turn with relative ease, dropped back down through the lock and settled in on our mooring.

Retford is only halfway through the Eastern section of the canal. Beyond there are another nine or ten miles of attractive countryside canal before you reach Worksop. Through Worksop and just the other side are thirty-three of the forty-five locks along this end of the canal. The word on Worksop, itself, was: "Don't stop, put your head down and go straight through!". While we have often found warnings about specific places to be exaggerated or even just plain wrong, the message here was very clear. We didn't have time to find out for ourselves on this trip but perhaps we will on a future cruise.

We knew nothing about Retford and the name itself didn't sound all that attractive. Having a good look round that evening and the next day, however, we found it to be quite a pleasant place. The aqueduct on which we were moored carries the east-west canal over the River Idle, which runs from south to north through The King's Park below. The park was an excellent amenity. The informal area of the park to the west of the river has a children's play area with a pirate themed water splash park and a performance area, a wildlife garden, a skateboard park with a multi-use ball court and large open green spaces surrounded by mature trees and a woodland area. The river separates it from more formal grounds and gardens that lie to the east and behind Asda and they, in turn, lead through to the town itself.

Exploring beyond the park the following day we found Retford to be quite a nice town. It has had a Royal Charter since the thirteenth century and lays claim to having been the place of origin of at least some of the non-conformist pilgrims who sailed for the New World aboard the "Mayflower" in sixteen twenty. We picked up a Heritage Trail from the community hub and followed that round in the morning, after a coffee in the large Market Square, which is at the heart of the place. It houses the rather grand Town Hall and the Police Station next to it.

Retford Town Hall With The Police Station on the Right

Unusually, rather than being moved to modern premises out of town, this still functions as a Police Station today.

Other buildings around the square had clearly been banks but were now available for let or being refurbished. The town's prosperity owed a lot to the Great North Road running through it and there are a number of coaching inns around the square as a result. Two other prominent features of Market Square are the Broadstone, probably once the base of an old parish boundary cross and the war memorial. The latter is topped by a lantern that is lit each evening and kept burning until dawn. As well as the names of those who fell the memorial lists the principal actions in which they died and the distance of each from the war memorial in miles.

Generally, the town centre was an odd mix of prosperous, fashionable shops and boutiques and rather run down, dilapidated businesses and charity shops. The trail took us around a range of interesting times in Retford's history and its architectural features. One piece that stood out was the Clarks of Retford Heritage mural.

Clark's Of Retford Mural

Clarks of Retford were a textile dyer, founded in the town, that expanded, over nearly two hundred years, to include laundry and dry-cleaning services, with over a hundred outlets and eight hundred employees.

A similar mural was found, not far away in Spa Road, which celebrates the famous Retford Sheep Fair that was held just across the ring road on Spa Common for over a hundred years, up until nineteen-eighty.

Retford Sheep Fair

Another impressive souvenir was in Cannon Square. A two-ton, twenty-four pounder, captured at Sebastopol in the Crimean War in eighteen fifty-five, is the cannon that gives the square its name.

The Eponymous Cannon

It was purchased from the Admiralty in a sale of captured ordnance and brought to Retford in eighteen fifty-eight to celebrate victory. During the Second World War it was in danger of being swept up in the drive for scrap metal to aid the war effort. It was saved by a local Alderman and mysteriously spirited away to remain in hiding until the end of the war. Restored to its previous site in nineteen fifty, mounted on a new wooden gun carriage, it has remained there ever since, forming a small roundabout.

We finished the tour and found ourselves outside a real, old-fashioned caff, wreathed in cigarette smoke, with a strictly cash-only policy and within yards of three separate building sites. I'm not sure why we chose to eat there but there was a table on the pavement, so we only had to actually go inside to order. It took a while to get out to us but, actually, the food was pretty good and it was certainly cheap. We still had to collect a parcel from the local post office, where it appeared to be rush hour, before heading back to the boat. We had decided to move back to Clarborough, where we had spent Sunday night. Before we left, just to be sure, I emptied our jerry can into the tank and filled it again at the Asda petrol station beside the canal.

Back at the forty-eight hour mooring at Clarborough, "Otters Pocket" was still in situ and had been joined by "Meander" but there was room for us between them and they helped pull us in, so we were all tucked up, just in time, before a series of heavy thunderstorms set in for the evening. "Land of Green Ginger" was not so lucky though. They arrived in pounding rain and only just managed to fit half on the end of the mooring.