Gongoozling

Well done to anyone who understands the title of this post. It probably means you won't learn much from it - because you're already in the know!

In this week's Five on Friday - to join in with Amy at Love Made My Home - we're going for a wander by the canal. Britain's canal system was the 18th century equivalent of today's motorways. They carried most freight, and often carried people too. Even at four miles an hour (walking pace) it was often faster (and definitely smoother) than travelling by road.

So let's start with some boats.

Narrow boats in the heart of Birmingham

Canal boats were also known as narrowboats. There's a reason for that. Most of them were no more than  seven feet wide and the gauge was determined by the earliest engineers who designed the canals to be not much more than 15 - 20 feet wide. Why?  Well, every yard of the 2,000 plus miles had to be dug by hand. And when they were complete they had to be supplied with water. Imagine you make the canal just three feet wider: that's 95,040 cubic feet of soil and rock to remove for each mile; and 592,000 gallons of water to find to fill it back. So they built them narrow.

A lock flight at Stourbridge

The engineering involved in getting up and down hill was pretty tough too. That meant building locks; a complex means of raising and lowering a body of water, in a block, with a boat floating on top. The earliest locks, on James Brindley's 1769 stretch of canal, from the coalfields of Wednesbury to the heart of Birmingham, were made to take only one boat at a time - to simplify the required engineering work.

Rope wear

Of course the earliest boats weren't mechanised. They were hauled by heavy horses, by means of long ropes. The ropes were often wet because they had dragged into the water and then they picked up sharp stones and clinker from the towpath as the bargees made their way along. This turned them into very effective rasps, and you can see evidence if you look carefully. The photo above shows rope wear on a bridge parapet where boats turned a corner.  (Think about the horse in front, turning right to cross a bridge to make its way onto a branch canal. As it goes, the rope is pulled across the brickwork, scraping away the top surface. The boat is dragged around the corner and continues along the way.)

Canal crane

Let's not forget that canal life was tough. The bargees transported goods for hundreds of miles, loading and unloading heavy cargoes at each destination. To help them with the task warehouses had canalside cranes and a very few still exist today. The pictured one, at Shardlow in Derbyshire, sadly doesn't exist any more. The metal work at the bottom (that lifted and turned the arm) is still there, but the woodwork became so rotten that it was removed some years ago for safety's sake.

Measham ware pots

And at the end of the day the boat families were grateful for a pot of tea. Often the bargees owned a magnificent, colourful pot made near the town of Measham in Leicestershire. The decoration often marked an important family event, such as a birth or marriage, and the pots were treasured heirlooms.

So that just leaves the post title. "Gongoozlers" is a canal word for people who stand around watching the boats pass while other people do the work!  It's a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

Right. Off you go over to see Amy to find out what other Fives have been posted this week.

Five on Friday - Wheels

Here we are again at Friday and here I am joining in with Amy at Love Made My Home for her Five on Friday feature. Today I've chosen wheels.

A nice simple one to start with. It's a penny farthing bicycle, which I always think look very impressive but I don't fancy riding one. I don't even fancy trying to get up on one! This is on show at Kelham Island Museum in Sheffield.

These wheels are what makes church bells ring. In this case at Lichfield Heritage Centre, a converted church that allows guided tours of its tower and the old bell chamber. They're fascinating to see close-up - but you don't want to be in there when they're ringing!

Here's a water wheel. It's on the side of Dyfi Furnace in Mid Wales. Dyfi is a restored 18th century charcoal fired blast furnace that was used for smelting iron ore. The wheel was used to power the bellows that maintained the furnace temperature.

This one was used to raise and lower a crane by the side of the Trent and Mersey Canal at Shardlow in Derbyshire. Canals were, of course, the main method of moving goods before the arrival of railways, and later road transport. This type of crane would have been a common sight along the banks of the Victorian canal system, but sadly very few remain - including the one in the photo. They fall victims to wood rot and vandalism. Even accidental damage can be fatal, since the workings are made from cast iron, which is very brittle, and cracks when it is hit.

And this one is for fun! It's on the front at Scarborough in an entertainment complex called Luna Park. It's changed a bit over the years, but there's been a big wheel there for as long as I can remember. I've never ridden it. You'll NEVER get me up there!

Now click on the photo below to be taken to Amy's site to see what other Fives are on offer this week.

Five mile posts

Here we are again, having had a week off for Easter. It's Amy's Five on Friday day again. Click on the image at the bottom to see other people's offerings.

Back in the days before GPS systems it wasn't always easy to know where you were or how far you still had to travel on your journeys.  There were lots of ingenious and attractive ways of letting travellers know. Here's five examples.

Theoretically with a bit of geometry and a map you should be able to work out where this is. But I'll be kind to you. It's on the A12 at Yoxall in Suffolk.

This is a particular favourite of mine. I love those pointing hands (they're called manicules, by the way) and the helpful lamp post on top in case you're travelling at night.

The users of these signs weren't allowed to travel at night. It's a canal marker, and narrowboats had to stop once darkness fell. This one's also a replica. You can tell because of the small plaque dated 1977. It was erected by the Trent and Mersey Canal Society at Derwent Lock to replace a missing original.

This one tells you where it is - except it's wrong. Castle Donington doesn't have a double N. It also frequently gets accused of being in Derbyshire, even though it isn't. This one's a bit out of the way nowadays, but the road it stands on used to be a turnpike.

This one assumes you know where you are. You can probably work out that you're in Derbyshire, but this is very similar to one I found last weekend in Ashbourne. London is 139 miles from that one too, though Manchester is 45 miles away. Does that help?  Thought not. This one's in Wirksworth.  

Now click on the link below to visit Amy and her Five on Friday supporters.

Five stiles for Friday

Here I am again with Five on Friday for Amy's meme. This week I'm taking a look at stiles - those wonderful contraptions that let you cross fences, walls and other boundaries. It's to link in to a post I've done this week on my other blog.
Don't forget to click the link at the bottom to visit other people's entries.

OK, so here's the first example. It might look like a gate, but those decorative ironwork pieces are fixed so you have to go around them and squeeze through the gap. It's a way of ensuring that livestock can't get out of a field, but humans have no trouble passing through. This one leads to the churchyard at Breedon on the Hill. (That's the one you can see as you drive up the M(A)42 through Leicestershire.)

Here's a nice stone one from Hathersage in Derbyshire. There's plenty of millstone grit around that area to build sturdy examples like this. They're firm under the feet and easy to cross.

Here's a complex design from the National Trust property Calke Abbey (yes - Derbyshire again). That extra bit on the left with the three uprights is a lift-up section so dog walkers can let their pets pass underneath rather than trying to get them over the top. (Have you ever tried to get a dog to cross a stile?  It's why I have cats these days.)

And this one's in Wales. Probably the tallest stile I ever saw! Those cross pieces at the top make it easy to climb though, because you have something to hold on to. It's near Ruthin

And this complex little number is, as you can see, next to a canal. The Trent and Mersey, to be exact, close to Trent Lock.  I'm not entirely sure whether it's Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire. The Trent is the boundary between three counties (including Leicestershire) at various places along this stretch and it's always hard to tell exactly where you are. The river is behind you at this point.