The Pennsylvanian and the Rubbish

The Rickmansworth optician could do great business with the local dog owners and the dogs on the towpath certainly don’t suffer from constipation!

We would never have found the CRT refuse disposal bins in Rickmansworth if it wasn’t for Paul Balmer’s excellent canal maps.  I will provide some instructions on how to find the location for any other boater coming this way who do not know where it can be found.

The logical place for the bins is on the main canal beside the water point below Bratchworth Lock.  However they are not located there.  The Waterway Routes maps show the bins up the River Chess.

I walked up the towpath from Chess Lock with two bags of rubbish thinking “This is a disused arm!”  On rounding the first bend I saw a windlass operated lift bridge.  To my surprise, beyond the bridge was a row of moored boats.  These are obviously private moorings.  The refuse bins were behind a row of trees in a secluded spot.  The following screen dump from Google Earth shows the exact location.

Being Sunday we were due for our usual cooked lunch.  There’s a pub on the other side of the canal specialising in traditional English pub food and Nepalese?  On the road into the town centre there’s an upmarket looking pub/restaurant.

The Wing

However we decided to walk to the High Street and eat at The Pennsylvanian. 

Yes, it’s a Weatherspoons pub.  We opted for the medium sized Sunday roast beef and it turned out to be a good choice.  Neither of us could have eaten the offered large portion.

We are keeping an eye on the winter maintenance stoppages and will probably stay in Rickmansworth for a few more days.  Certainly not a long as the boater behind who casually informed us he’d been on the 14 day moorings for a month.  Actually a shorter time will suit us as the odds on us not standing in towpath dog faeces increases every day.