Thank you to campaigners, volunteers and musicians

Market Harborough – Welford - Crick

Market Harborough, the second cruise destination of 2025, had been reached.

This pleasant little town has a purposeful feel about it: there are lots of independent shops where you might sense that browsing customers have sufficient funds to make an impulse purchase; there’s a working jewellers, a butchers and a fresh fishmongers, millinery and leather shops, a bustling Waterstones, several supermarkets, plenty of bakery and coffee shops and, according to a relatively local resident, “the very best restaurant in all of South Leicestershire.”

“Why is it an affluent little town?” Boatwif had asked the said resident.

“There are lots of villages – and a mainline railway station to London,” she had replied.

Not that the Cleddau crew found or had need of the railway station or Ascough’s Bistro, the recommended restaurant  https://www.ascoughsbistro.co.uk/ . They did find, though, a compact little Italian café with delicious lunch-time food  https://www.justsoitalian.co.uk/our-delis on Adam and Eve Street.

The striking building in the church square you’d expect to have been a medieval market place for cheese or butter… in fact though it is The Old Grammar School, founded in 1607.  

The undercover space provided good acoustics for a pair of buskers performing to a small passing audience.

The parish church is a very fine building, mostly dating from the 14th and 15th centuries.

 The low pews in the nave make the central area feel pretty spacious. Behind the arches of the north and south aisles can be seen a pair of galleries, installed apparently in the 19th century to provide more seating accommodation. 

There’s a gallery too above the West Door – but no details could be found about the very attractive glazed panels in front of the West Gallery balustrade.

It’s an uphill walk from the town centre back to the canal moorings near Union Wharf. These days the canal basin is lined by apartments, a busy pub, some private moorings and some day and holiday hire boats. In former times goods such as worsted cloth, grain, bricks, beer and coal were brought in and out of the town via canal barge. A striking reference to the past is this, ‘Frank the Plank’, an art installation to suggest a worker moving a plank on the wharf-side. It’s a sundial too, according to this: https://batch.artuk.org/discover/artworks/union-wharf-sundial-frank-the-plank-315449

As Cleddau pulled away from her Market Harborough mooring the Captain gave a shout and hailed the crew of nb Tonka. Why, here were boats from a campaign flotilla which had set out from Doncaster and was heading for London to join a mass Thames cruise up to Westminster in May.  (https://waterways.org.uk/support/ways-to-get-involved/events/fund-britains-waterways-westminster-campaign-cruise Four of the boats (Tonka, That’s It, Purple Emperor plus one other) had diverted into Market Harborough (for a grocery stock up??) while others had continued up Foxton Locks, heading onwards to the Grand Union.

A few days previously friends Pip and Mick of nb Oleanna had swelled the numbers in the south bound flotilla in an all day cruise up the tidal River Trent from Keadby Lock to Cromwell Lock,  https://oleanna.co.uk/2025/04/04/line-a-stern-1st-april/ to parade the following day NOISILY in front of Newark Castle  https://oleanna.co.uk/2025/04/05/storming-the-castle-2nd-april/ .

To find out more about the Fund Britain’s Waterways see https://chesterfield-canal-trust.org.uk/fund-britains-waterways-campaign-cruise/

Well done and thanks to those who are cruising such long distances to take their message to the heart of London.

Cleddau then headed out of Mark Harborough, past the glorious houses

(another larger rebuild going on here)

on the eastern side of the canal and the new housing estates to the west.

Several of the bridges are named (Uncle Tom’s Bridge is Bridge 12) and later Sedgeleys Bridge (No 9)

and Johnsons Bridge (No 7) were spotted.  

What a glorious day for boating – blue, blue skies, trees bursting into leaf and glimpses over a valley through gaps in the towpath hedge…

The views brought back reminders of the lovely stretch of the Upper Peak Forest Canal above the Goyt Valley on the Cheshire / Derbyshire border.

There can be other unexpected sightings too: a squirrel carved by a boater was helpfully static, unlike the grey one that shot up a tree before the camera was aimed…!

It was nearing midday when Cleddau crept up towards the infamous swing bridge in Foxton village. Day boaters ahead were happy to man the bridge and battle with its tough operation. Thank you to them.

Before arrival at the foot of the locks at Foxton there is another (easier) swing bridge

– and it being a Jazz Friday dulcet tones from the J for Jazz quintet were playing smooth lunch time music at the Foxton Locks Inn. 

The sounds of vocals, guitars, a double bass and a trumpet were drifting deliciously across the water.  (Brilliant!) There was about an hour’s wait before the flight was cleared of other boats,

during which the background music and the aroma of scampi and chips teased and tantalised the senses…  

Up the hill, five locks to the passing point plus five more, accompanied all the way by gongoozlers*, a young girl and her family and a couple of volunteer lock keepers. (Thanks to all of you!)

Away from Foxton then, passing a pair of crafts-selling boats,

to a place out in the country where the towpath tea table could be set up by the bow

and the washing line at the stern…

A dry April, lucky for boaters, lucky for anyone needing to dry laundry – but is it so lucky for the farmer whose field behind the hedge was very parched …

Onward the next day, past the fields with the livestock feeding troughs,

past the large farm, through Husbands Bosworth Tunnel,

past North Kilworth, back to Welford Junction.

A Saturday newspaper was possible after all, via a trundle along the Welford Arm, a passage up through the lock,

a towpath mooring near Welford Wharf, a trot up the hill (giving a passing wave to Postman Pat)

to the little shop, where even at midday there was still an array of Saturday newspapers. Back at the Wharf a team of four volunteers was just clearing up after a morning’s work, jet-blasting the stonework near the water point and de-weeding, on hands and knees, the cracks between the wharf side stones. Thank you, volunteers.

For a last night before a return to the marina Boatwif craved a wide piece of towpath – who knows when it will be warm enough again for a towpath cup of tea?!

Back to Crick the next day, passing the Glamping site (and look, someone is head down into the hot tub, cleaning it!)

Though the wind was chill and the skies overcast, it had been a mellow and a yellow experience: shimmering gorse, carpets of rape, tree-shaded banks of primroses, brave towpath edge cowslips, tiny buttercups emerging in the grass and brash dandelions.

Yes, cruise number 2 of 2025 had been successfully completed.

Cruise Crick – Market Harborough – Welford – Crick: 50 miles, 22 locks, 2 tunnel passages, 4 swing bridges

Number of times ‘What does Cleddau mean?’ question asked: 4

*Gongoozlers - A gongoozler is a person who enjoys watching activity on the canals of the United Kingdom. Boatwif had introduced several onlookers at Foxton Locks to the ‘Gongoozler’ term, ie that they were gongoozlers (watchers) who were gongoozling at the boat climbing the locks…