A tail of the riverbank. This is of course only a Fairy Tale.

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oldgit

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Stage One. You buy a narrow strip of land along a river with no services/no access and subdivide it into into as many "leisure plots" as you can get away with and then flog it on.
Makes it more difficult and expensive to discover ownership and to prevent unofficial developments.
The new owners then start to erect all manner of landing stages/shacks and fences totally at odds with all development plans and totally out of character with the area resulting in a favela that would not be out of place in Brazil.
Stage Two. One or two owners give up resulting in the odd rusting abandoned lighter chained to adjacent trees.
Stage Three.
One particular owner wants out but in style.
You advertise your much loved "Houseboat" with all mod cons with local estate agent
All you need is river licence, a BSC....and £260 K. :)
 
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I know of at least 2 wide beams and a narrow boat in this area to which (I think) you refer. Any more rain and these 'shacks' etc.... will be washed away. The small cruiser just below said barge was sunk a couple of weeks ago when we went for a run upriver, and the barge allegedly broke its mooring last week in the floodwater. I think we are both agreed, that with our knowledge of this stretch of river, it is totally the wrong place to moor a boat.
 
Have been familar with this particular part of the river since fishing the stretch in the early 1960s.
The valley is very narrow there indeed with steep adjacent banks and no meadows on either side to absorb winter spates .
During high rainfall periods ,the flow there is impressive and am pretty certain that anything moored there is going to end up down stream.
A chain or two round a tree or a collection of scaffolding driven into the ground will not be holding a 20 tonne steel box for long.?
Recall somebody also looked to have had bought a piece of land adjacent to the old Tovil paper mill wharf, moored a boat there and promptly proceded to erect fences and other homesteading junk. On my last trip up, the boat had vanished and the area appeared overgrown and abandoned.
 
The piece of land above Tovil bridge was owned by 'fellow riverfarer' who died last October. He lived in one of the houses adjacent, and his boat, a Princess 32 is offered for sale down your end of the world

DSCF7927 (640x480).jpg

Taken Boxing Day 2012, The rope attached is suspending a Moonraker 36 that was moored behind and broke its headrope
 
Remember that Moonraker.
One other boat ended up just adjacent to the lock and had to be be cut up,another made it as far as the river bank down near the M2 motorway bridge.
 
Took a run up to Farleigh today, after I had convinced SWMBO that after replacing the 'botched' alternator bracket, undertaken several years ago by a Thames marina ,( I have the invoice) that it needed testing. Anyway, the above mentioned wide beams and the smaller narrowboat have remained unscathed, thus far, and the barge is now securely chained to its trees. And works are continuing apace on the lock, gates removed and coffer dams in place.

A little reminder from 2012DSCF7915 (640x480).jpg
Is this fairy tale is becoming reality...........
 
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