Yesterday belied the thunderous downpour warnings as we ventured south to Newark to visit Les Reid, as part of our new Open Bridges Project for Heritage Open Days – Hull’s River Bridges. It turned out to be a glorious day as we met Les and jumped aboard Les’s workboat the Ruffian and headed down the Trent through Newark Town Lock to the Newark Heritage Barge, the Leicester Trader. It’s a privilege to work with Les, and listen to his many fascinating and entertaining yarns. We recorded Les talking about what Between Bridges meant, illustrated with photographs and commentary from the time when the river and ‘Up Harbour’ was full of vessels. The film will be published here during this year’s Heritage Open Days festival from September 12th.
On the return journey, a duvet got stuck and jammed the propeller and we had to be towed back to the marina where the boat was hoisted from the water for Les to remove the offending article. Luckily it didn’t do any lasting damage, and in the words of Les, ‘all in a day’s work on the river’.
Newark’s unique Heritage Barge ‘Leicester Trader’ is the last Trent size cargo barge built to fit the old locks of the Trent Navigation Company. Saved from being scrapped in 2008 and renovated by Les and a group of local barge aficionados, the dumb barge is now a floating museum, currently moored in the lee of the imposing 900 year old Newark castle ruins.
Find out more about visiting the Leicester Trader on the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/leicester.trader
Rich and Lou Duffy-Howard
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love it–adventure on the Rufian with the ruffian–
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