 The
heavily locked Northampton Arm leaves the Grand Union Canal
mainline at Gayton Junction and joins the River Nene in the
centre of Northampton.
The
River Nene then takes a twisting course to Peterborough
through pleasant rural surroundings and then becomes tidal as it
crosses the flat Fenlands on its way to the sea. However it is
possible to turn away from the difficult tidal stretch and enter
the Middle Levels which open up hundreds of miles of peaceful
waterways. The Nene originally joined the Great Ouse to
flow together into the Wash, but the course of the Great Ouse
was moved in the twelfth century to a more easterly outlet near
King's Lynn. Nature, and then man from the Romans onward, have
been continually altering watercourses of this large area of
marshes between and around the rivers, frequently flooded by the
North Sea, to farm the rich soils.
The
River Great Ouse flows over 70 miles from Bedford out
into the Wash, linking to the River Cam coming down from
Cambridge and a series of other navigable rivers along its way.
The
Middle Levels are a network of Rivers, manmade drainage
ditches and sluices intended to drain the low lying area between
Peterborough and the cathedral city of Ely. However they also
offer a navigable route between the River Nene and the fenland
rivers. The Dutch engineer Vermuyden created many of
them when he drained the Fens in the 17th century. One of them,
the Old Bedford Level, runs dead straight for 20 miles and was
the location for a series of experiments in the 19th and early
20th centuries to prove, or disprove that the Earth was round.
Posts were erected along a six mile length and viewed through a
telescope to see if the curvature of the earth could be seen.
Unfortunately both sides originally claimed victory! In 1905 a
Lady Blount tried to settle the matter by hanging a sheet from a
bridge so its bottom nearly touched the water. A camera with
telescopic lens was used to take a photograph along the surface
of the water from six miles away. If the Earth was curved the
bottom of the sheet should not have been visible. The
photographs clearly showed the bottom of the sheet! So perhaps
the Earth is flat!
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The main concern of these rivers and drains is
water control. They are managed by the Environment Agency and an
additional licence is required by BW licenced boats to cruise
this area. However they offer an unique and beautiful cruising
area, scattered with interesting villages and market towns but
often just land and sky and utter solitude! Cruising is on the
increase and more facilities are being installed.
Right - Denver Sluice controlling a
complicated meeting of rivers and sluices. |
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