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Sunday, 3 August 2014

Staying moored

 

Today we had a bit of a lie in, before getting up to a glorious sunny morning after yesterday grey day, we had breakfast and then walked up towards the canal museum at Stoke Bruerne.

Boat scales originally from Glamorganshire canal

 

The museum is set over two floors in a building that use to be a steam powered corn mill, it was opened in 1963 as a result of the initiative of local lock keeper Jack James, who regularly won awards for the attractive appearance of the locks and his display of canal ware.

It displays lots of items about how the canal, the village and also the story of the near Blisworth tunnel. Stoke Bruerne is over a 1000years old, and in 1792 a new route of the Grand Union Canal was proposed and the next year gangs of navvies arrived at the village to start excavation on the tunnel, in 1800 there was huge building works in the village and the canal was excavated and locks and tramways were constructed.

 
Thus the village was transformed by the canal with a New bridge over the cut, shops, pubs and smithies workshops appeared plus work , including carpenters to repair lock gates, making balance beams, Blacksmith would create the iron work for the canal and also the horseshoes for the horses that use to tow the narrowboats, in 1827 the GUCC was employing registered leggers to work the boats through the tunnel, as said before the legger would lay horizontal on a board and would walk the boat by leg power only.
http://www.canalguide.co.uk/history/

Legger boards

In 1930 a nurse Sister Mary Ward set up her surgery for the boat people in canal side home, here she provided all round care and support, initially meeting the cost from her own funds, afterwards the service she provided was funded from the canal company, she was awarded the British Empire Medal for her recognition of her service to the boating community.

I would recommend a visit to this village as its a pretty canal side village well worth a days visit, with the museum, shops,pubs,cafes and restaurants, also a few times a year it holds a canal festival and it War festival where it sends the village back to World War 2.

http://www.stokebruerne.org.uk/

Speak to you soon

 

 

 

 

 

 

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