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Shadowed Eyes

@shadowedeyes.bsky.social

300 followers 23 following 590 posts

Boatlife, Canals, Heritage... ...plus a bit of Gloucester Heritage (https://gloucester500.co.uk) 📷HDR

gloucester500.co.uk)

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · Nov 26

River Cherwell, aka Oxford Canal, photographed in October 2022 less than two weeks into the new boatlife and just a few days before boatlife reality struck and a stuck starter motor left me stranded in the Oxfordshire boonies for eight days.
#ukcanals #canal #narrowboat #boatlife #OxfordCanal

Autumnal, warm-tinted image of the canalised River Cherwell with a narrowboat moored near a bridge over the river and the Oxford Canal continuing round right.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 2d

Grand Union at Daventry, just before Braunston Tunnel. Very pretty, but all those leaves in the canal meant constant anxious blipping of reverse to clear them from the prop while going through the tunnel 🥵
#boatlife
#ukcanals #canal #narrowboat
#KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a canal lined with colourful trees in autumn.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 2d

Ha ha, yes, thanks, though the constant fouling of the prop by all the leaves made it even more of an anxious experience than usual 🥵

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 2d

Extended and in part drought-enforced stay on the Grand Union finally comes to an end as me and m' little boat-home turn onto the North Oxford. Forecast indicates a fair chunk of that drought will be fixed tomorrow ☔☔☔
#boatlife
#ukcanals #canal #narrowboat
#KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a narrowboat travelling down a canal against a backdrop of a gently rising field in which sheep are grazing, lined on the far side by autumnal trees with the spire of All Saints Church rising into a moody sky.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 5d

Rare moment of sunlight...was beginning to forget what sunlight was.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 5d

NB Trout, built 1931 for Fellows, Morton & Clayton, breasted up on the Grand Union with its butty, Norah, built 1930 for London Midland and Scottish Railway. The pair are now home to Daisy's Bakin Butty floating cafe 🍰
#boatlife
#ukcanals #canal #narrowboat
#KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a pair of historic working narrowboats breasted together at the side of a wide canal lined on each side by trees in their colourful autumn regalia

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 6d

Good luck. Lots of canal loveliness to explore out west.

Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 6d

Up, heading back west. Grand Union is highly recommended and the Leicester Line glorious, but I prefer there to be more junction choices and fewer scary tunnels (still got to get through Braunston yet), and as a single-hander of advancing years I find narrow locks easier.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 6d

Cleared the Buckby locks, thanks to vlockies and a couple on a hire boat who clearly knew what they were doing, so it is in theory, with only a bit of careful timing around planned stoppages, open waters for the winter😊
#boatlife
#ukcanals #canal #narrowboat
#KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of narrowboats moored at the side of a wide canal on a soggy grey day made colourful by trees resplendent in their autumnal finery lining each side of the canal.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 7d

Fond memories as a rookie turning off the Grand Union onto the South Stratford here and promptly wedging my boat in the very first lock😵‍💫 A certain amount of fender indiscipline had crept into my routine after all those wide locks on the GU🫣

Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 9d

Bridgeless bridge hole on the Grand Union (used to be bridge 30, so bridge numbering here is a tad discontiguous now). 'Tis the season of colourful trees and, therefore, constant clearing of leaves from my leaf magnet prop 😠
#boatlife
#ukcanals #narrowboat
#KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a canal lined on each side by trees in their autumnal finery. In the middle distance the canal narrows where a now missing swing bridge once spanned the canal. Through the gap can be seen a white, two-storey canal-side residence.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 12d

4/4
Meanwhile, the early 19th-century original can still be seen next to the working lock, though now it is blocked at either end and, but for a rusting old barge, empty.

Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 12d

3/4
Most have now been filled in, leaving unusually wide grassy expanses to the side of the surviving lock and the occasional, now curious-looking double-arched bridge. This one at Stoke Bruerne top lock not only survives, but remains in use.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 12d

2/4
The double lock here is one of the few to survive, in structure at least, the 1830s duplication of several locks from here southward. It was a vain attempt to stave off competition from the railways, and nearly all duplicate locks were out of use by the 1850s.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · 12d

🧵1/4
Canalside cottages opposite the Boat Inn, top lock at Stoke Bruerne on the Grand Union. Inn appears to predate the canal, having been built in the 18th century, whilst the canal followed at the turn of the century
#boatlife
#ukcanals #canal #narrowboat
#KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of historic canal-side brick and stone buildings lit at night. On each side of the canal, above a functioning lock next to a decommissioned lock, there is a narrowboat moored.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · Sep 25

Crept into my fourth year of liveaboard continuous cruising last week. Nights drawing in now, fourth winter approaches.

Pic: The very splendid Ashby Canal last April, before drought confined me to the Grand Union

#boatlife
#ukcanals #canal #narrowboat
#KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of a blue narrowboat approaching along a canal against a backdrop of leafless trees lit by a setting sun on a cloudless spring day

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · Sep 8

3/3
The bridge is listed grade II*, and the description in it's Historic England listing delights to such architectural exoticisms as 'blank cusped panels', 'quatrefoil frieze' and 'ogee half-cupolas'

Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · Sep 8

2/3
The unusually (for a canal bridge) ornate design is probably the result of the canal being cut through or close to the property of a wealthy landowner who had the clout to insist upon such niceties.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · Sep 8

🧵1/3
In 1793, digging began on the c.90-mile Grand Junction Canal (now part of the Grand Union) at both northern and southern ends. Seven years later, the two stretches met at this bridge in Cosgrove.
#boatlife
#ukcanals #canal #narrowboat
#KeepCanalsAlive #FundBritainsWaterways

Photo of an unusually ornate and decorative canal bridge built from dressed limestone.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · Sep 6

8/8
</cynic mode disengaged>

Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · Sep 6

7/8
Which, sadly, is pretty much still the case today, though successive governments have become a lot more sly in not properly funding our waterways heritage by successfully inserting the Canal & River Trust between themselves and any blame for the inevitable decline caused by inadequate funding.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · Sep 6

6/8
The beams are built to a steel-based design popular with the 1970s school of "Oh dear Lord the people are getting uppity about all the canals we've neglected, we need to do something, erm, cheap" Govt. thought on managing our waterways heritage.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · Sep 6

5/8
<cynic mode engaged>

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · Sep 6

4/8
The lock gates there now are something of an anachronism, a decorative repurposing of old gates that were nevertheless clearly built long after the originals had completed their second life and ultimately become wood chippings and mulch.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · Sep 6

3/8
A new aqueduct was completed in 1811, allowing the temporary cut and its locks to be retired for what is, so far, the final time, and everything useful that could be removed was put to good use elsewhere.

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Shadowed Eyes @shadowedeyes.bsky.social · Sep 6

2/8
When the embankment and aqueduct over the river was completed in 1805, the temporary cut and its locks were abandoned, only to be returned back into use when the aqueduct suffered a catastrophic containment incident (to borrow from modern rocketry phraseology) in 1808.

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