Thursday, August 06, 2020

Berkhamsted to Guildford by narrow boat in 1965


Another video from the heroic age of canal cruising.

This one starts in Berkhamsted but soon moves on to scenes that are familiar from my childhood.

So at 1:43 you will see the swing bridge at Winkwell, which was the goal of many family walks when we lived in Warners End.

Then at 3:18 it's on to Boxmoor and the Fishery Inn, where the shop sold ice cream and fishing nets. With some friends, I had a den somewhere behind the pub, but when I went back years later I found it had been lost to the expansion of its car park.

And at 3:48 I think we see Foster's Saw Mill, which later burnt down and became the site of our house in Boxmoor

After that we travel south through Watford to the Thames at Brentford. You will see that the canalside industry, which made use of the waterway for transport, was in the process of dying out, though I do remember working boats coming through Boxmoor.

Then we travel upstream on the Thames through Richmond and Kingston, before joining the River Wey to reach Guildford.

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