Admittedly, especially after some of the places that we have recently visited, the sound of spending almost a week in Brentford dock doesn’t sound like a very exciting prospect. We stayed on our mooring from Sunday afternoon until Friday morning and it was a really good experience. As described in the previous post  we spent Monday visiting Kew Gardens. The forecast for Tuesday was for heavy rain so we decided to stay put and wait for it to arrive. It came eventually but not until late in the afternoon, meaning that we had squandered most of the day; not that we had given up any plans to do anything. In the evening we noticed that the boat was listing, despite being at the bottom of the Grand Union, this stretch is still a river, the Brent. When we had tied up two days earlier, we had noticed that the water level was quite low and that with the amount of silt, we were actually sitting on the bottom. As we moved around the boat, strange noises came from underneath the baseplate, no doubt as the suction between it and the mud broke allowing water to bubble through. The heavy rain had quickly caused the water level to rise by around 9 inches and by eight o’clock, the ropes had tightened and created the listing to the port side. It only took a few minutes to slacken the ropes and rectify the problem and when I checked again a few hours later, the level had stabilised and we were able to go to bed in peace.

Wednesday was spent locally; a grocery trip to Morrisons, boat cleaning inside and out, chatting with other boaters and rounding the early evening off with a drink on the balcony of the Time Café Bar which overlooks the Brentford gauging locks.

When we had travelled from Teddington, one of the boats in the lock with us was a widebeam called “Miss T Morning”. We had moored near this boat on a couple of occasions as we had travelled down the Thames although hadn’t actually spoken to the crew. After leaving the lock, MTM zoomed off and had soon left the rest of us behind but as we reached Richmond, saw that they had pulled over on to a grassy mooring. We hadn’t factored in the possibility of mooring in Richmond with it being on the tidal section so we assumed that they knew the area, knew that there would be little mooring and had made sure that they were getting whatever there was for themselves. Nothing could have been further from the truth as I found out when I was approached by the owner whose name was Dave. He told me that they had in fact broken down and that was why they had pulled over. Their “mooring”, as nice as it had looked to us as we passed was an enforced one and they had spent the next 48 hours adjusting their lines as the tide came in and out. Eventually, they had managed to get a tug to pull them off the river and through the Thames lock and they were now sitting between that and Brentford gauging locks, still suffering with the movements of the tides although I suspect to a lesser extent than when on the Thames. RCR had been to inspect the engine but their analysis was inconclusive so a marine engineer was due to visit next. Dave said that all parties: RCR who had recently carried out the service, Betamarine who had supplied the engine and the boat builder were all trying to wash their hands of the problem. Very frustrating for the owners considering that the boat was just over a year old. As for the outcome, we’ll probably never know unless we bump into them later on our trip.

Thursday dawned bright and sunny so we walked to Richmond, some two and a bit miles away. The walk took us through Syon Park and passed by Syon house, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Northumberland and very nice it was too. It took us less than an hour to reach Richmond where we took a closer look at the weir that we had passed over just a few days earlier. As the tide goes out, the weir is created by dropping barriers from the bridge and this maintains a navigable level between Richmond and Teddington by holding water upstream; during this time, through traffic must use Richmond lock. When the tide comes in and the levels equalise, the weir gates are lifted allowing normal navigation.

Richmond Weir bridge.

Richmond itself has a bit of a seaside town feel to it, possibly because the streets slope down to the river and there is evidence of flooding near the water’s edge. It didn’t take us long to walk around the town and as it was still quite early, we jumped on a bus and visited Kingston again. The town was quieter than it had been the previous weekend so we were able to do a bit of shopping and have some lunch down by the waterside. After lunch we caught the bus back to Brentford High Street and walked back to the Docks.

The area around the dock is and has been redeveloped and although there is still building work going on, by this time next year it will be fully surrounded by apartment blocks. These are luxury apartments and the cheapest are over £400k for one bedroom accommodation! The area is well lit and quiet at night, pedestrians pass by during the day between the nearby Holiday Inn and the railway station so it’s all relatively peaceful save the noise from the railway and the ever present planes in and out of Heathrow. Full services are available including a pump out for those who need that facility. All in all it is a good mooring for anyone waiting to get on to the Thames or having just left it.

Braunston is only 93 miles away!

Braunston 93.