Thursday, March 26, 2009

Wheat to Wellingborough

The most exciting thing for me in this month's Waterways World (I can't tell you the page number because I've left it on the boat) was an article about the grain traffic in the late sixties, illustrated inter alia with a big photo of Tarporley - a Tarporley that had clearly seen better days, like most of the boats just clinging on at this time - but how facscinating to see the evidence that it had still been carrying so late.

Maybe because this is a bit of route that I'm relatively familiar with, my first thought was how splendid it would be to re-enact this particular run. The Jam 'Ole run is supposedly historically significant as representative of the very last long distance contract, but this is not universally agreed, and the re-enactment, brilliant as it is, is marred somewhat by the complete obliteration of the Jam 'Ole itself.

Whitworth's mill at Wellingborough on the other hand is very much extant, and still in operation. The starting point of the journey could fairly (possibly completely; I haven't researched this at all yet) accurately be Limehouse. Surely someone, at some time, has done this before?

1 comment:

Amy said...

the *most* exciting thing in this month's waterways world?? we are most offended! (only kidding, it was pretty exciting even for us to see Tarporley in its working days!)