Earls Barton to Northampton

9 September 

Early morning today was much milder than the last few days. Steve went off to All Saints in Earls Barton to ring bells and I followed on a little later. 

Tower dating from 970

The old houses of Earls Barton are built of a much darker stone than some of the other Northamptonshire villages we have visited – this is due to the amount of iron in the rock.

Following the service we went straight back to the boat as we wanted to get to Northampton in time to get a pump out before the man in charge goes off duty at 4.30.

We left our mooring at 11.30 and made good progress through the first six locks. These are all automated guillotine locks so the bottom gates are open for us to go in. (You do have to empty the lock again ready for the next person which adds a bit of time.) The sun came out, and with it, a strong breeze which made dropping off and picking up at landing stages tricky at times. 

The last three locks for today were ones with mitred gates at both ends and the rule for these is that you can leave top or bottom gates open depending on which way you are going. We were obviously following someone as, at the next two locks, it was a top gate that was open (only one because, if your steerer is careful, a narrowboat can exit a broad lock through one gate without disturbing the other one). So we had to empty the lock before we could go in, but then we, in our turn, could leave a top gate open. 

The last lock for the day was Town Lock in Northampton and as we approached it we could see that both top gates were open. Bother! That means either I have to walk round the lock to close both gates or Steve has to do some extra work and close one of the gates. To add to my irritation, the paddle on my gate had been left open, so that was more work, winding it down. We moved to the bottom gates to open the paddles to empty the lock, but it seemed to be emptying very slowly. Then Steve realised that the top gate paddle on his side had been left open too! There are indicators on the gates which are meant to show whether a paddle is open or closed, but a number of these indicators don’t work which is not very helpful. 

Anyway we eventually got through and turned into Northampton Marina where we were going to have the pump out. Seeing that Northampton Embankment already had several boats moored on it, we decided to recklessly spend £10 and moor in the marina for the night.