A dark walk home

Walking back home from Beeston Rylands last night I took some photographs. An amble of sorts. I will let the images speak fro themselves. Some will make there way over to my new beestonnights blog (see link in right-hand column).

Beeston Artways – by bus tram & train

I hope the diagrammatic map which follows speaks for itself. I have been prompted by favourable comments to have ten copies printed off A3 size which can be bought only from Mish Mash Gallery on Chilwell High Road or the White Lion pub at the junction of Station Road and Middle Street. They each have five copies for sale and I have described it as a 'limited edition map'. I will print updated copies as and when the first ten have been sold.

Simply click on the map to enlarge.

Here are two sections of the map close-up:

The map has been created to publicise Beeston's easy accessibility to a range of art venues by public transport and the fact that it has its own 'Creative Corner' and White Lion, pub both selling original works of art by local artists and crafts people. Both deserve our support.

From one canal to another, then another...

On Wednesday Susan and I left Beeston for the day with a friend. It was her birthday and she got to decide where we went, and she chose Foxton Locks near Market Harborough in Leicestershire. 

By coincidence it was to another canal. A few weeks ago I posted photographs of a chance visit we made to Bratch Locks in Staffordshire on the western edge of the Black Country and I have another canal walk to make with my daughter.

I will let the photographs tell their own story. I have overlaid the Canal & River Trust map with numbers showing the direction of the photographs and our walk. It was a lovely five hours, including a good lunch at the Foxton Locks Inn.

Some of the photographs have text below them.

The Union Jack flying at the top of the incline plane is actually on the roof of the Foxton Locks Museum (see below)

This is a close-up of what brickwork remains from the incline and reminded me of Roman foundations you might see at a excavated site almost anywhere in England. There is something ageless about what is left to remind us that once there was a great working structure where now only cemented bricks and rubble remain.

Look closely and you can see the front of a narrow boat in among the trees. It is in line with the top of the incline plane. The picture was taken from the viewing platform marked on the map above.

The Foxton Locks Museum is run by Foxton Inclined Plane Trust, which exists to promote and preserve the site. Until visiting the Museum, I had not realised how short-lived the inclined plane was. It only operated for eleven years between 1900 and 1911, and sold for scrap in 1928. 

The Museum is actually new and was built by the Trust. Only its back wall is original.

Any 'experience' you have on a visit to a museum or similar venture begins with the welcome you receive and it is obvious that the Foxton Inclined Plane Trust understand this well. This is Penny, there to welcome us and take our money, and to sign me up so our £12 entrance cost (3 x £4) could be turned into a gift-aid donation. With it came membership and free admission for the next twelve months. A great deal if you live near-by.

Over the years I have visited too many places where the staff have been sullen at best or indifferent at best. I want to shout at them and say you have a job many would love; working in a public space, surrounded by history or attractions that people have travelled miles to see and all you can do is welcome them with disdain.

Penny here at Foxton Locks Museum could give lessons in how to be a great 'meeter and greeter'. She checked more than once that we were enjoying our visit and her colleague was just as cheerful and helpful. A real credit to the Trust and its museum.

The museum is child friendly with lots of exhibits aimed at children, like this mock up of a boiler. The two black square holes in the corners contain lots of wooden balls which when put into the round holes in the boiler door set the large gauge on the top edge of the boiler turning, together with suitable steam engine like noises. The balls then roll back into boxes located behind the square black holes at the bottom. It sounds very realistic.

My selection of photographs has been chosen in the hope that you might want to visit Foxton Locks as a result of reading this blog. There is a lot to see and it really is a great day out, especially if you drive down to Melton Browbray, then down the B6047 towards Market Harborough. From Beeston it's 46 miles my way.

I have been a great fan of canals all of my life and have written about them on and off for over forty years. I like them for walking along because they are, for the most part, flat. My old Lenton parkviews blog contains a number of canal related posts, including entries for the Nottingham & Beeston canals and my favourite, the Erewash Canal.

Table 8 to Marvellous Furniture via Beeston Lock and Mish-Mash

Yesterday was my kind of day. Good food, an amble, a touch of serendipity, and inspiration.

At mid-day Susan and I walked down Wollaton Road to have lunch at Table 8 and were there for a good two hours. I will let the food speak for itself. It was wonderful and, despite the temptation of grilled haddock with mussels, I went for black pudding on the basis that I cook fish and mussels at home, but never black pudding, despite the fact that I love it. I am not sure how I will get pass black pudding if it is on the lunch-time menu the next time we go to Table 8. Truly, truly delicious.

We both had the same pudding, despite my love of creme caramel and anything with custard. It took me thirty minutes to eat as I placed little spoonfuls in my mouth one at a time and let them desolve. A Tom Jones of a pud.

The coffee came with yet more chocolate. If you haven't been, don't delay. All this cost just £34 — great value and the service was friendly and welcoming. At the end we felt ready for our walk to Beeston Lock.

Down by Beeston Canal it was quiet and the air was still and warm. The water still like a pond.

By chance we came across a Canal & River Trust table inviting passers-by to join, so we did. Siobhan here took our money and now we are registered supporters — something we have meant to do since the Trust came into existence. 

I took this view of Beeston Lock and the keeper's old cottage. It looks a picture and I suspect gets photographed thousands of times a year.

The reason for the lock and Beeston Canal is the weir just to the south of the canal. In the old days, there was an arm of the canal which linked to Trent not far to the left-hand side of this picture, but that closed a long time ago. On the day of our visit the water was flowing very fast and the roar was close to deafening.

Between the weir and the lock is a collection of boarded up cottages. I took this pic from the footbridge across the long abandoned arm I mentioned above. These cottages and this whole area will be transformed over the next few years into the Canalside Heritage Centre. The local volunteers behind the project have just been awarded a large grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund to turn the site into a museum, exhibition space, education resource, café and a centre of canal related activity and events.

From now on I will go back every few months and picture what is happening from the footbridge.It should look very different a few years from now.

A little further along the Trent past the lock, as you walk towards Attenborough and Sawley, we came across this. Someone with a sense of humour.

We had intended to have tea and cake at Fusion and buy a replacement piece of glass from Created by Hand, but they had none made, so we have a good excuse to return soon. In the end we didn't have tea or cake. We were still feeling full after our lunch at Table 8.

Across the road from Chilwell's Creative Corner is the above fine looking parade of shops and the place we wanted to visit was Marvellous Furniture. Here is part of the above pic showing the right-hand side larger.

We were not sure what to expect and inside we found a shop selling good quality old furniture at reasonable prices in a stylish manner, arranging items in a way which ensured there was plenty of space to view every item. A real joy of a shop.

The Mish Mash Gallery, which is part of Chilwell's Creative Corner, is a great place to buy cards and small limited edition prints, as well as original works of art, and whilst there I fell for a photograph measuring 22" wide x 5" high, titled 'Whitby Panorama' by Tony Brodrick. You get some sense of its size in this photograph above, which shows my personal pinboard with the panorama resting along the bottom until I find it a permanent home.

What attracted me was the detail and the depth. The above close-up of part of the panorama shows clearly what I mean. It looks more like a model than a photograph. The reason I bought it was because it fitted in well with some ideas I have in my head for taking my Beeston map to its next stage by trying to include hand-drawn streetscapes of sections of Beeston High Road and other town centre shopping streets. I have some examples from hand-drawn streetscapes of London and other cities. Whatever I do will be completely new to me, but I want to have a go anyway.

Those of you living in the area will know all these places, but I am writing as much for would-be visitors as locals. Beeston and Chilwell have a great deal to offer and I would argue that you could easily come to Beeston for a week's holiday and never go near Nottingham or ride on a bus , except for a few stops.

As I said right the start, yesterday was my kind of day.