Crofton Encounter

We had a walk around the lovely village of Great Bedwyn before we left this morning.

This is the centre of the village, from where we walked……..

………down past the unusual Post Office building (which we’ve covered in one of the late blogs last year).  It stands beside, what used to be, a masons’ yard and is covered with unwanted or unused tomb stones and plaques with some amusing “last words”.

Just one of them included here!

About 100 yards up from our moorings were the services, which both ‘Autumn Myst’ and ‘Chance’ needed (water for both, pump out for one).

After the services we had a good run along the cut today but the strong wind proved to be very tiresome.  We got to Crofton, where the famous old pumping engines are, and moored up as both Bob and James wanted to have a look.  As the moorings were very good, and the wind being as bad as it was, we decided we might stay put.

This is the Crofton Pumping station from the canal.  This wonderful historical “treasure” houses the two old beam engines which used to pump water from the nearby lake into the summit of the canal  just 1/4 mile away.

James took a lot of photos (as he would!) but just three shown here so as not to get too boring!  This one is of some of the main control gears. Wonderful stuff! It is in steam several times a year!

This is looking down on the cylinder of one of the engines showing the connecting rod going down through the ‘packing box’ seal.

The “beams” of both Beam Engines.

A view out of the window in the upper gallery of the pumping house showing ‘Chance’ and ‘Autumn Myst’ at their moorings.

This afternoon has been productive as we’ve got the washing dry in between the April showers.  The wind has increased since we moored up so we’re happy to stop for the night and are looking forward to Bob and June coming aboard for a meal this evening.