Wheat to Wellingborough
Last Traffic: NarrowBoat, Spring 2009
John Pyper
In a series featuring some of the last regular cargoes on our waterways, John Pyper recalls the narrowboats that brought grain from London to the Nene until the last load in 1969.
Three pairs of Willow Wren narrowboats waiting to be unloaded at Whitworths Mill, Irchester, near Wellingborough, in the summer of 1964. On the left, Mark Harrison is standing on the cabin top of his butty Satellite (his motor, on the outside, is probably Quail), John Henry & Rose Meese’s pair are Dipper & Argo, and Ron & Elisabeth Green’s pair Aldgate & Brighton are next to the bank. Beyond is another pair, the butty already unloaded and the motor about to be emptied.
Grain for various mills on the river Nene was, from the beginning, an important traffic on the Northampton branch of the Grand Junction (now Grand Union) Canal. The Grand Junction Canal Company completed the branch to connect Northampton and the Nene to its main line in 1815, after much agitation by the Nene Commissioners and the people of Northampton over the delays. Although the company had built its main line with wide locks, and in its early years intended to promote barge traffic, the branch to Northampton was built with narrow locks to save both water and money. There was, however, the proviso that if the locks at Watford and Foxton on the (original) Grand Union Canal, which had opened the previous year, were to be widened at a later date, then the locks on this branch would have to be widened also. The Grand Union’s Act had added another complication in its requirement that Watford and Foxton locks must be widened if the Grand Junction Canal Co were subsequently to guarantee an uninterrupted passage for barges through Blisworth Tunnel. So in the 1960s – the last decade in which boats brought grain to Wellingborough – as a consequence of those decisions made 150 years before, boatmen were still confronted with 17 narrow locks between Gayton Junction and Northampton. They had enjoyed the convenience of being able to work pairs breasted up through the wide locks from Brentford to the Top Lock at Stoke Bruerne. On the Nene they had wide locks again and could work breasted up down much of the river. But at Rothersthorpe they had to work the boats through singly and bowhaul the butties down the thick of the locks. There must have been great relief when British Waterways brought a horse from the West Midlands to tow the butties down the locks. She was an experienced boat horse and she was handled by George Beechey. George had spent many of his younger days boating with horses, but was then working as lock keeper and living in the cottage at the top lock of the Rothersthorpe flight.
In this sequence of photographs, on a rather dull morning in autumn 1963, Ted Ward, captain of the pair Badsey & Capella, has taken his motor ahead single-handed, leaving his mate, Johnny Best, with the butty to follow, horse-drawn. Capella is seen here descending one of the locks in the thick of the Rothersthorpe flight, with the M1 and its bridge over the canal in the distance.
Capella in the Rothersthorpe flight, with a long goods train toiling up Blisworth bank. It was the transfer of the grain to rail (although it was unlikely to have been carried on this line) that caused this narrowboat traffic to cease in April 1969.
Here, we see Dolly grazing while George Beechey talks to Sylvia Pyper. Note the towline made fast to the spindle on the gate paddle to stop boat running back onto the sill.
Dolly follows George below one of the distinctive drawbridges of the Northampton branch.
My uncertain recollection that the horse was called Dolly has been confirmed by a letter from George’s granddaughter, Lorraine Beechey “. . . my uncle is pretty sure that the horse that my grandfather, George, had when he was lock keeper at Gayton was Dolly. One of my neighbours, Mike Berrill, is from a boating family himself, and he remembers her as quite a character – she liked her home comforts and, although she was fine taking boats out, as soon as they turned for home, she’d be off – dragging my granddad behind her.”
It was a great sight to see Dolly, as the lock gates opened, take the strain on the line from the mast of a loaded butty, lean gently forward in her collar, take a few little steps as the boat began to move, and gradually lengthen her stride as it gathered speed down the pound. She knew her work well and needed little persuasion or encouragement from George; and deservedly enjoyed a few minutes grazing at each lock as the boat worked through. To see a horse-drawn canal boat sailing under the newly constructed M1 bridge was to witness one of those extraordinary conjunctions of past and future transport systems still happening in the middle of the 20th century.
Dolly leans into her collar whilst George leans against balance beam.
That century had seen the substantial grain traffic down to the Nene at Northampton continue, in particular to Whitworths Mill at Little Irchester, just south of Wellingborough, and to Westley Brothers & Clarke at Northampton. Westleys had their own boats, but other carriers were also involved. Mrs Joe Palin told me that her father worked for Manny (Emmanuel) Smith and took wheat to Westleys Mill at Northampton and flour back to Brentford. Being horse boats they had to be started out into the river and across the lock cut to reach the mill, a manoeuvre that could no doubt be tricky in some river conditions.
In the late 1930s the Grand Union Canal Carrying Co was taking considerable tonnages of grain onto the Nene, until the Second World War when grain imports were transferred from the Thames to the Mersey. However, Bob Sharman, who spent his childhood in the area, recalled horse boats coming to Whitworths during the war – and also a fire in the grain store there one day. Children saw the blaze from Wollaston and biked there to see the grain store burnt out and the river filled with the grain which had poured out. Apparently one of the grain silos, containing 3,000 tons, spontaneously ignited on 17th June 1941 and the blaze attracted thousands of onlookers. Fire engines from as far away as Northampton attended.
During the 1950s, 11,000 tons a year were being delivered. Then, in 1963, British Waterways abandoned most of its narrowboat carrying operations. Willow Wren took over the traffic to Whitworths and in its declining years this represented a substantial part of its business. In 1968 an average of more than three pairs a week delivered grain to the mill, but in practice the deliveries were far from regular.
To begin with, supplies depended on when ships docked and when the grain could be lightered up to Brentford to be transhipped into the narrowboats. Consequently there were often a lot of boats waiting to load there, which then set off in quick succession. Then there were the occasional problems of ice on the canal and, more frequently, floods on the River Nene to contend with. Boats might be frozen in at Northampton and then with the thaw the river would be flooded. Thus when the boats arrived at Wellingborough they were often in a bunch and had to wait to empty.
Dolly and George approach the lock house at the tenth lock, just above the M1 crossing.
Dolly keeps going towards the tenth lock, whilst George drops the top paddles. The lock house was demolished soon after this photograph was taken in autumn 1963.
In the spring of 1966 four pairs of boats are seen tied above the bottom lock at Northampton, no doubt held up by flooding on the river. There has been time to do the washing, which can be seen blowing from the line high above the loaded boats. Some time after Capella was seen with Dolly in the earlier photographs, both Ted Ward and Johnny Best married and, by the time of this photograph, each had a Willow Wren pair. The nearest in this picture is Johnny’s, and with a young baby there is plenty of washing to do. At least a further three boats (two loaded, one empty) lie beside the British Waterways warehouse beyond the diminutive lift bridge.
The same three boat pairs are again seen waiting to be unloaded at Whitworths Mill in the summer of 1964. On the outside is probably the motor Quail, then Satellite, Dipper & Argo, and Aldgate & Brighton. Note the mixture of Willow Wren and British Waterways liveries. The traffic had been taken over by Willow Wren from BW the previous year.
At Whitworths Mill, Ron Green is on the bank with his wife Elisabeth (née Meese), in the hatches of Brighton. The elevator is about to come down to empty the motor in the unloading length ahead.
In these two photographs, also taken at Northampton, Ted Ward is standing on the footboard of Capella with his father George sitting on the ‘starntop’. To their right are Johnny Best, Ted’s uncle Ted Ward, and his sister Linda, who had cycled over from Wellingborough where she was living with her husband.
The butty Ara beyond was probably being worked by Ted Ward senior, perhaps with the motor Nutfield. Again, the washing is flying from the line behind Capella’s tiller, indicating that the crews have been making the most of the time waiting for the river level to drop.
The cabin doors on Capella were painted for Ann and Ted Ward by her father, George Wain, as a wedding present.
The Trouble with Grain
ANN WARD, who did many trips to Wellingborough for Willow Wren with her husband Ted, recalls some of the problems
If we had orders to take grain to Wellingborough we had to pick up wheat cloths from the warehouse at Bulls Bridge before going down to Brentford to load. There we were loaded from barges by a crane with a grab. If it was raining, barges and boats were taken under the overhanging shed to load, as grain was a load that had to be kept dry.
The grain was carried loose and if it escaped anywhere and got damp it would soon start sprouting and it would stink as though something had gone sour. So the wheat cloths were like large sacks or loose sacking to be laid along the floor of the boat to keep it out of the bilges.
When emptying at the mills you had to watch out or the cloths would get ripped and dragged up into the jigger. This was an elevator like a conveyor with little metal cups or buckets on a band which was lowered from the mill into the loose grain and worked the length of the boat with the grain being shovelled into it. Sometimes a machine like a vacuum cleaner to suck up the grain was used instead. Ten shillings (50p) was paid to boatmen if they were willing to help to shovel the grain into the elevator – but Ted told them what to do with the shovel and let the mill’s wheat gang get on with it.
Then the cloths were taken up and the boats thoroughly cleaned out. If any grain was left it would quickly germinate and grass would be coming up round the knees or you would find a green field in the bilges. It was a more troublesome load than coal, and it was as dusty.
I think the horse came to help the boatwomen who, on twohanded pairs, would have had to bowhaul loaded butties down the locks on their own. Having George Beechey with the horse made a great difference to us – we could even start preparing our dinners as we went down. When we got to the bottom of the thick we would usually give George a cup of tea and also give him ten bob or a pound or what we could afford for some feed for the horse.
The horse only helped with loaded butties so I continued to bowhaul the empty butty when we were returning up the locks. Generally Ted would go ahead with the motor and turn the locks round so they were ready for me. But if we were late and it was getting dark I preferred to go ahead rather than be left behind down there.
We could sometimes do the round trip from Brentford to Wellingborough and back in a week, but it was hard work and very long hours.
On the River Nene, as on the main line of the Grand Union Canal, the boats could work through the locks breasted up. Here, Ted Ward’s empty pair Badsey & Capella is leaving one of the Nene’s locks, having unloaded at Irchester.
Ted Ward steering his empty pair back up the River Nene.
Ted Ward’s pair, returning empty, waits for another pair to enter the lock ahead. They will probably work breasted up all the way up the Nene.
I remember an evening in The Cottage, the pub at Little Irchester, on 15th August 1967, when there were six captains there: Ted Ward, George Wain, George Radford, Mark Harrison, Billy Hunt and Jack Anderson. When things went well, however, Ted Ward reckoned he could complete a round trip in a week, a total of 188 miles and 232 locks. During this period the wheat being delivered to Wellingborough came from Australia and, after cleaning and treatment by Whitworths, was delivered to Weetabix at Burton Latimer.
In 1969 there was a somewhat abrupt end to this historic traffic to Wellingborough. Whitworths received an offer from British Railways for the carriage of grain in bulk rail wagons from the new Port of London Authority grain terminal at Tilbury, and decided to end the Willow Wren contract. The last loads were delivered in April 1969.
Among the last boatmen to unload wheat at Whitworths were Ted Barrett Senior with Widgeon & Toucan and Mark Harrison with Curlew & Cygnus on 9th April, and Ken Dakin with Sudbury & Baildon on the 13th, as stated in Alan Faulkner’s Willow Wren: The Story of a Canal Carrying Company. Then on 21st April I visited the mills to find two pairs unloading, John Boswell with Halsall & Banbury and Ted Barrett (again), with Widgeon & Toucan and Ken Ward arriving with his pair, Flamingo & Beverley. The next day, 22nd April 1969, I saw Flamingo & Beverley empty and hurrying back upriver at Hardwater Lock and Earls Barton. Shortly afterwards I was with Ted Ward and he confirmed that his brother Ken’s pair were indeed the very last boats to empty at Whitworths Mill.
Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge much help and information given by Ann Ward, Alan Faulkner, Robert Wilson, Cliff Garrod, Lorraine Beechey, Bob Jarvis of Whitworth Bros Ltd – and the late Jack James of Stoke Bruerne who tipped us off when boats were coming. JP
On Tuesday 22nd April 1969, Ken Ward’s pair, Flamingo & Beverley, having delivered the last load of grain to Whitworths Mill at Wellingborough, is hurrying back upriver at Earls Barton.
Ted & Lily Barrett at Northampton on butty Barnes, with brasses glinting in the evening sunlight.
