From Silent Night to Dick and Judy.

Saturday 8th August, 2015 in East Marton.
Barnoldswick, sometimes pronounced by the locals Barnoldswick and sometimes Barlick, has two claims to fame (other than Malcolm and Kathleen - see yesterday!). The first is "Silent Night" - not the Christmas Carol but makers of high quality mattresses, publicised by their famous smiling hippos.

The second, surprisingly, is Rolls Royce. During the Second World War they had a large facility here making Merlin engines and the first Rolls Royce jet engines were developed here.

The huge factory still makes parts for Rolls Royce jet engines and we discovered that the "RB" in the name of the RB211 jet engine stands for Rolls Barnoldswick!
The sun came out as we approached the three Greenberfield locks. After 41 locks going up to the summit level at 487ft, we are now starting on the long way back down.
Originally here, there was a staircase pair of locks and a single lock but in the late 19th century they were replaced by three single locks to speed up passage and save water. The original canal went under the bridge in the centre of the picture. The space under the bridge is now a stable!

A group of curious cows monitored our progress through the locks. Unfortunately they didn't help us with the paddles but just stared over the fence at us and chatted among themselves.

At the bottom of the locks, you could cleary see the course of the original lock cut, which was party still in water and the old banks are a mass of wild flowers.

When the farm track that used to cross the canal at East Marton was improved and made into a proper road, it was raised considerably higher, so another bridge was built on top of the old old one. Hence the famous "double arched" bridge.

We moored up in East Marton to wait for Dick and Judy, who are due to spend a couple of days with us. While waiting, this band of cut-throat pirates sailed past, brandishing cutlasses and clearly enjoying themselves.

Dick and Judy arrived in time for tea, anxious to fool us into thinking that they had been walking the Pennine Way (all 256 miles of it), which actually runs along the towpath here for a couple of hundred yards!

It was great to see them and a glass of champagne, which they had very kindly provided, was the order of the day to celebrate.

Today: 5 miles, 3 locks and 3.5 hours.
Trip: 201 miles, 103 locks and 124.2 hours.