22/7/2022
The Paper Mill, Apsley
Although my stay in King’s Langley was brief I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to hear that the duck eggs and Tring ale lived beyond expectations. King’s Langley remains, as I’m sure it always will, one of my favourite stops on the Gand Union. As implied, this time it was merely a pit-stop and after a few days I moved a short distance (about a mile and three locks) to Apsley – on the outskirts of Hemel Hempstead.
Apsley could hardly be described as the most picturesque town on the cut. Apart from the pretty marina, next to which I was fortunate enough to find a mooring, the rest is mostly concrete and steel. But it is hugely convenient on many fronts. This happened to be a fortnight when I needed to be in London for several visits and the mooring I secured was a three minute walk to the railway station – the train journey then being about a half hour into Euston. Although this was the main reason I upticks and shifted to Apsely, this small enclave possesses many other fantastic amenities.
Quick side bar: I’m not sure where the expression up sticks and shift comes from (I suspect the military) but in the boating world it is not just metaphorical. Very few of the towpath moorings, outside of urban areas, have rings or bollards. More often that not we use steel pins, or sticks, which we hammer into the grass banks with mallets (fantastic for aggression therapy!) then tie onto during our stay – before lifting up and shifting on. Fun fact or dull fact? You be the judge.
Back to Apsley. As a boater’s pit stop it has huge benefits. In one direction, about a ten minute walk, there’s an excellent laundrette. Across the canal there’s a large Sainsbury’s next to a retail park with an Argos, a Curry’s and one of those weird warehouse places that seems to sell everything from pet products and compost bags to curtains rings and power tools. On this trip, I finally managed to find a decent desk chair – in which I now sit and, for the first time in a decade on board, am able to type in comfort. (Hurrah!)
Most importantly, especially if you’re staying a bit longer, there is, as you can see in the first photograph, a first class pub. This is on the off side, which brings me to another advantage of my lucky mooring. What you can’t see in the photograph is that I was pitched next to the footbridge which leads directly to the hostelry – and, beyond that, the aforementioned railway station. There is also an excellent pizza joint called Calzone and, a mere fifteen paces from my (I can’t stress this enough) amazingly well appointed mooring, an Indian restaurant called Marina. The Indian only opens in the evening, and even then appears to have a fairly relaxed attitude towards its posted hours, but it’s well worth a visit. If you do go, I highly recommend the lamb rogan josh.
Although Apsley has these wonderful assets and many more besides (there’s another lovely looking restaurant next to Calzones which I didn’t get a chance to try on this trip) it still strikes me as a place that puts function above form. I wouldn’t call it ugly, but I would suggest that it verges on the sterile. That said, like all towns, Apsley does have its occasional splash of colour. Most notably for me, this character (second photograph) who sits on the towpath and gives me smile every time I walk past – in spite of my general dislike for topiary.
The Angry Apsley Hedge
And there I shall sign off on this shorter than usual entry. Mainly because, as I write this, I’m excitedly thinking about the next journey: to Berkhamsted, and a pint at The Rising Sun...