Merry Miller I, and Prompt Corner

I was last on the Basingstoke Canal in January 1958, just after the blowing up of Lock 22. Blowing Up, because in 1957, some troops returning from an evening exercise blew up the Lock 22 at Frimley, causing the pound above to be drained. The owner got the Prompt Corner, an outboard motored 22ft ex-bridging pontoon, lifted round lock 22 and the pound above(from Sea Cadet Corps, if I remember rightly).

We were in Fleet as we realised that the boat would not go through a bridge! The owner and the crew spent a half hour convicing passers by that that they could weigh the boat down so the craft could pass through. With passengers lining all the horizontal surfaces, including the floor, we passed though - just.

We went the whole length of the canal, the river Wey to Greywell Tunnel, although we changed boats to get there. We continued to the obstruction about 3/4 mile before Greywell. I don't think the Warnborough lift bridge constituted the obstruction, only I don't remember! We changed boat to the Merry Miller an 8ft sailing dinghy, that had towed behind the Prompt Corner' the whole way. The River Whitewater crosses the canal at about half a mile to Greywell, just adjacent to Odiham castle.

The river crosses on a level! That means that the river has a 'hydraulic syphon' under the canal, the river has a tunnel under the cut to fully separate the waters, which obeys the edict that the canal should not use the water of the river!

Merry Miller II at the eastern end of Greywell Tunnel
The person at the oars is the owner of Prompt Corner!

We got the whole way to Greywell! We weren't able to enter! We followed the horse track to the top of Greywell Hill and saw the water filled hollow, which they say, was a sole remnant of the fall of the tunnel in 1932. We went down the other side too see the other portal. It was a cave into the hill, nothing was left of the portal in fact, but the cave was the whole extent of the bore, I could see, and photograph inside, with no trouble. (A small fall has truncated the tunnel, leaving the bore behind the fall.)

Desolation
Merry Miller II at the western end of Geywell!
--- I took the boat, but there was no water!

We returned to the boat, and returned to Prompt Corner. We are about to part company, the Prompt Corner with its owner and crew to undertake the return journey and I, with the Merry Miller just to my Auntie Doreen at Fleet, Hants and there to Barton Mills, my home.