... and Millie makes three: September 2024 - Good locks and one bad lock!

Cookham - Bell Rope Meadow (River Thames) – Monday 2nd September

Grey and drizzle, not the best weather to set off down the River. I asked Rio if he wanted to go on the roof and by his demeanour I gathered that the answer was no thank you!!

Down through lovely Henley, passed The Angel and the boat houses and onto Hambledon lock. There was a lockie on duty and he managed to get five boats in the lock which surprised us.

By this time it was really raining. We were looking for a particular boat along the meadow at Medmenham, and eventually we found her, No Problem XL with SueNoProblem on board! We tied up alongside and Sue came on board for a coffee. We hadn’t seen her for years, 2019 I think. It was lovely to catch up with her again.

Danesfield House used to be RAF Medmenham during WWII and became a Joint Service Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) Unit and was known as RAF Medmenham. Danesfield House was to IMINT what Bletchley Park was to Signals Intelligence.

We got water at Hurley lock then went down through and onto Temple lock. We thought that we might be able to moor in Marlow, but no such luck. We went down Marlow lock and onto Cookham Meadow, but once again there was no room. However, we spied a hole on Bell Rope Meadow. By the time we got there a motor cruiser was leaving so we were able to have a space each. It had stopped raining and was quite warm so we sat out as usual 🙂

12 miles
4 locks

Windsor (River Thames) – Tuesday 3rd September

We left Cookham in the grey - yet again. Down through Cookham, Boulters and Bray locks which all had Lockies on.

Down Place is part of Bray Studios which was built in the 1750s. In 1951, Hammer Film Productions bought Down Place and from there on sound stages were built. In 1991, television producer Neville Hendricks bought the complex and allowed film production to continue but he sold the complex to a property development company who submitted a planning application in 2015 for luxury apartments and demolition of the sound stage buildings; demolition of buildings at Bray began in 2017. Filming resumed at Bray in 2019 with all three episodes of the BBC's Dracula having scenes filmed at the complex. In June 2020, Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council approved plans to expand the complex with new studios and workshops. In July 2024, Amazon Prime Video, which had until that point been leasing facilities at the Shepperton Studios, acquired the Bray Film Studios, where its series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is also filmed, for an undisclosed sum; the buyer was initially listed as Amazon MGM Studios. The first Amazon production to start shooting at the studios under their new ownership is the second season of the series Citadel. This is a very potted history of Bray Studios, there is so much more! When we passed in 2019 Down House was in a very sorry state but today it has been done up and looks now to be apartments.

Boveney lock was on self service and a big trip boat came up behind the narrowboats as they waited for me to sort the lock. The crew of the trip boat said that we could all get in the lock, we were very doubtful, but we did!

As we went under the A332 bridge there were two buoys in the water. I had seen from Facebook that they marked a car that sank there on Monday. Police and Firefighters were called and Thames Valley Police said it is not thought anyone was inside the car and work was underway to remove it from the river. It was still there on Tuesday afternoon! UPDATE - work started on Wednesday morning to recover the car.

There was plenty of mooring at Windsor and we chose to be near the leisure centre on the island. It was a lovely spot and quiet. Rio was let off his lead and did zoomies all round the island - he really was loving the life!

8 miles
4 locks

Laleham (River Thames) – Wednesday 4th September

As we left this morning we could see work beginning on recovering the car that went into the river on Monday.

We got to Romney lock, which was on self service, and there were two day boats in there. They left the gates open for us and in we went. Steve went to operate the lock, pressed the open sluice button, sluices started to rise, then fell back down again! Everything was totally dead. We looked into the Lockies office to see a big red light on with the word FAULT! Steve phoned the emergency number and 2½ hours later the Lockie came and reset the system. He told Steve that the lock gets confused sometimes!

Down through Old Windsor and Bell Weir locks and into Staines, where we had planned to moor up and go to Sainsburys. The moorings were full - in the past we have been the only ones there!

We saw this lovely Dunkirk Little Ship which was on its way to St. Katherine’s Dock in London for The 15th Classic Boat Festival as part of the Totally Thames Festival. Also there will be historic tugs, a Navy P2000 vessel, Thames sailing barges and the Whitstable smack Thistle.

We planned to moor up at Laleham and the whole mooring was free so we didn’t have to breast up together for a change. We felt we deserved a meal out so walked up to the Three Horse Shoes where we had a very good meal indeed.

Walking to the pub we saw this.