Stories of the Arm

Click here for a review of the History of Blisworth Arm

 Thomas Henshaw and a 'couple of mates' taped by George Freeston in the Blisworth Hotel, around 1961.

First, some explanatory notes:  Mr. Henshaw says at one point that he was 5 or 6 when Thomas Millner came to the Arm - it seems he lived there.  As that was in 1895, we therefore know that Henshaw was born 1889 or 1890.  Inspection of the 1901 census reveals that a Henshaw family lived at the Arm in "Savages Cottages", these being the houses opposite Millner's maintenance yard, and lists two daughters and many boys; William born 1887, Thomas 1890, James 1892, Frank 1896, Albert 1899 and Harry, babe in arms 1901.  Mr. Henshaw was therefore "Thomas" (with a slimmer possibility that it was William).  The talking ranged over a number of topics, jumping about, and because of the noise at the bar, some are undecipherable.  At one point 'a mate' starts up to talk about loading at the sand-landing.  Henshaw and his mate both seem to be talking about a time 1900 - 1910.  I have transcribed the easiest bits and tried to stick to the order the subjects were raised.                 Tony Marsh

Henshaw:  . . . someone made a hole in the ice, for a bucket, and I was sliding and I fell in.  Got a new suit on, with brass buttons and I couldn't go home so I went to the wagon barn where there was some hay.  Got cold and stiff, my sister found me whimpering and took me home. [sister Isabella was four years older]

I remember there were two tollmen, one worked at night, the boss one was a Mr Dawson who was in the Toll House. [this is in accord with the 1901 census].  Their job was to gauge the weight of goods on the boats and charge a toll accordingly.  They used a rod down the side of the barge - with a vernier on the end, it worked like a hydrometer for car batteries.  No, they didn't do it from the staging because they got onto the boat and measured how high it was in the water at the four corners, take a average.  This was by the bridge - yes, the staging by the bridge just by the toll house. [someone was quizzing him]  They worked out the tonnage on board from the vernier that was set just on the rail with the rod just touching the water.

Mate:  . . . I was quick as I could, jumping from one gate to another in the dark, doing all the paddles, and when I got back the driver said "where have you been".  Course we had to work at night, sometimes starting at 4 in the morning to get a load done by the petrol depot (see below).

Henshaw:  I remember Dawson was the tollman and the pub was run by Cross.  Crosses were the landlords, in the days when there was much singing and fighting spilling outside on the grass. The pub had a rough stable next door, just a slate roof, and boaters in very cold weather would sleep with their horses if they had paid for a stable, just slates over all of them.  It were warmer than on the boat.  Normally they would sleep above the horses on a deck that I remember had got blackened from candles that get knocked over but on some cold nights they would sleep by the horse - get up in the morning smelling like a broom!  Yes, it was a risk with the candles and luckily there were no fire at the stable.  Some bargees were really rough and you couldn't follow their talk sometimes, they might as well be speaking French or German.  They could neither read nor write, and would ask us to write for them - even love letters, talk about edification!  I'd say, "Oh, how do you spell that?" He'd say, "What do you mean - get it down for me".  They couldn't understand that you had to spell before you could write it down.

[Notes elsewhere by GF:  Thomas Henshaw was one of many children, c1895.  They sometimes slept with their blind Uncle Jim on this deck (referred to as a loft by the owners in 1983) with cracked slates overhead through which snow would descend and on better nights you could see the stars.  A horse below with a cough meant they wouldn't sleep, and each time one urinated the smell wafted up to greet them.  The good news was that Jim was superb on the accordion - perhaps the horses were quietened by that too]

Mate (then taken over by H.):   I loaded sand at the wharf, down Milton Beach, by the petrol depot, yes - at sandlanding, [bridge number 3 is called 'sandlanding bridge' and it seems somewhere near there was called Milton Beach - suggesting sand and water's edge].  I was chucking it on by shovel till the boat grounded then pushing the boat further out and loading more sand by wheel-barrow over a plank, two of us.  No not Asplin, this was for Savage [ie. pre-1911].  The load was supposed to be 30 ton and it was gauged at top lock, it had to be 30 ton!  We would go down 17 locks and unload at the Corporation Wharf, at Watney's wharf if you like, wheeled it all off, and then we brought the boat back up through 17 locks and tie up. Guess what I got for that . . . I would get 6 bob, that was it, 7 if it were bricks instead.

Mate:   After Savages I worked for the ironstone until it was packed up in 1919.  Then I worked for Asplin to take his brickworks down . . . and move it across the canal, set up anew [this was in the period 1919 - 1921, according to some of Millner's letters]

Henshaw:  When did legging stop? . . . oh about 80 years ago.  I met the last tug-man that was at Blisworth not long ago.  His name was Leah, still alive down Far Cotton.  He went to visit Stoke (Bruerne) and came away in disgust - he said it were a show-place now, not a work-place.

Immediately next to the Navigation, I heard tell there used to be a big warehouse that Pickfords had, it were across the road, a big building but they took half of it down.  It were all took down years ago but that's where Pickfords stored their goods and chattels.  [maybe set up in the early 1800s but not next to the Navigation - current view is that it was the warehouse on the wharf, ie. across the road from the Navigation, that was Pickford's - see map]  Pickfords "turned to" the ironstone and brought loads down from Gayton in a horse and cart and load them into boats at the Arm.  The ironstone was taken by barge down to the furnaces.  George:  Did wagons come down the hill on skids?  H: No they were wagons and there was a sprag* man to do the brakes.  Yes, they were taken back up again by horses.  [this was a mode of delivery of ironstone not mentioned by Eric Tonks in his quarrying book.  George checked that Henshaw was talking about the Sparrow pits but the problem is that Pickfords, according to their potted history, are supposed to have abandoned canal based operations by 1850, before any ironstone mining had started up - a mystery perhaps explained by the gradual absorption of beer through the course of the recording - Henshaw's mate had seemed to have fallen asleep!]

Mercifully the recording stopped abruptly, as they often did, probably because the tape ran out.

* the gung-ho method of controlling a wagon with a stick through the spokes can be credited for wagons not exceeding 1 mph speed.  Otherwise the sprag-man would use chocks before the wheels and these are easily run over unless the chocks are captive in a braking mechanism.