Denham Deep Lock.

On Wednesday we left Rickmansworth on a beautiful sunny morning down through Stockers Lock. Nearby stands Stockers Farm, a listed building, with its lovely unspoilt old wooden barns and stables where they did some filming for ‘Black Beauty’.

How’s this for a wide beam boat complete with figurehead?

As we were waiting for Black Jack’s Lock there was a nice old mill alongside which had this idyllic painting on the wall. All the way down this part of the Grand Union are rivers and flooded gravel pits forming wildlife parks. The edge of the canal is too shallow in places for us to moor, but we managed to find a place just above Denham Deep Lock. After a wander around we lit the fire as it turned rather chilly and settled down with our evening meal.

We were woken quite early on Thursday by the lock being operated and Oakfield moving around on her ropes. Some boats went past at quite a pace, so after getting dressed I poked my head out of the cratch cover to see what was going on. It was a very cold and frosty morning with mist rising from the surface of the water. Two more boats were just coming out of the lock, Dove and Purton. I called out to the steerer of Purton who told me they were on ‘The Jam O’le  Run‘ heading for Braunston by Saturday, hopefully.

        

                                                                                                     So we got the fire going and had breakfast, then decided to have a walk through Denham Country Park. There are paths leading everywhere, anyway we ended up in the old part of the village. The painting on the Falcon Inn sign was nice as was the flowery frontage.

                 

Many of the houses have Dutch style gabling and this one was once lived in by the actor Sir John Mills.

The old mill still has the stream running underneath it, although it  now forms two private residences.

There are some lovely old timber framed cottages too. The one above was once the village Blacksmiths.

 

 

There is a small green in front of a rather grand old manor house. As we walked back along the lane there was a chap with a noisy petrol driven leaf blower ushering all the leaves into great piles. Bottle wickedly said, shall we scuffle through them? I thought, wouldn’t it be easier, cheaper and quieter to use a brush to sweep them up! After all the one that Trigger used in Only Fools and Horses was as good as new, having only had five new heads and four new handles!