Back to Torksey

The main task prior to leaving Lincoln was a walk to Tesco for a few essentials.  Along the way I happened to notice the Corn Exchange.

As you can see it dates back to 1879.  By the 18th century individual traders each developed their own discrete trading areas: the Oat Market was in the 'square' formed at the junction between St Mary's Lane and High Street, the corn market was in Cornhill, eggs, butter and perishables were in the Buttermarket north of St Peter-at-Arches. The fish market, which had been on High Bridge, was moved to join the meat market in St Lawrence's churchyard.  Despite the efforts of the council to use regulations to restrict trading to specified areas they were unsuccessful until the establishment of the Corn Exchange.  Today, the Corn Exchange and surrounding area is undergoing major renovation with some well known retail outlets moving into the location.

We winded above the lock and then retraced our cruise back through the Glory Hole.

I asked Jan to take a photo of Brayford Pool.  Unfortunately the sun was in the wrong position so the photo looks rather washed-out.

According to Wikipedia the pool is a natural lake formed by the widening of the River Witham.  The Romans used the pool as an inland port.  Apparently ‘Lin’ is ancient celtic for ‘pool’ and ‘Brayford’ a derivative of ‘Broad Ford’, a wide and shallow part of the river.

The same yellow peril we saw two years ago above the Bingley Five Rise was on the 48 hour moorings outside Burton Waters Marina.  Of course we had been looking out for her having been following the blog.

We are working to a tight timetable and regrettably didn’t have much spare time.  Just a few minutes for a quick exchange of news with Mick & Pip.

Mick and Pip (AKA 9¾).  If you follow their blog you will understand. Hope the build continues to go well.

A dutch barge just beat us onto the CRT services moorings at Lincoln so we continued on to Saxilby where we filled the water tank.  After five days it was down to ¾ so a top-up seemed wise.  It took 45 minutes to fill the tank and then we headed towards Torksey. 

Two kilometres from Torksey we passed another narrowboat going in the opposite direction.  It was nb Earnest D and the crew suddenly noticed our boat name pronouncing it correctly.  A kiwi couple who live in the UK.

We arrived at Torksey Lock just in time to join the other three boats being penned down onto the River Trent.  I needed to change the map on the gps from the Fossdyke to the Trent and that’s when our plan turned to custard.  The map was blank!!!   A late change of plan and I had to inform the lock keeper we wouldn’t be going up the Trent to Cromwell.  Instead we are on the floating visitor moorings below the lock waiting for tomorrow.  The gps map problem is now fixed and we are good to go at 2pm.