Upwell to Salters Lode lock

Last night I made a determined effort to get some photo's uploaded (it beat watching football) so I am playing catch-up. 
Last Saturday we left the comfort of our mooring on the Marmont lock landing and headed into the village of Upwell and the pontoon mooring just below the church of St.Peter's. Passing these reed /weed cutters that had been not so much moored/parked as abandoned...

The Well Creek, on which we are travelling, forms a kind of High Street through the village and in the past WAS the high street.  The villages of Upwell and Outwell were, pre Domesday Book, once a single village of Wella, which was an important inland port.  In the 14th century the Well Creek was the main water highway between the port of Lynn (now Kings Lynn) and the Midlands.

Until the 10th century eels were used as currency in this area, the abundance of the things (yuk) and other fish making it an important source of food.  A charter issued by King Edgar allowed twenty fishermen to catch 60,000 eels for the use of the monks at Ramsay Abbey; so that would be, eels on toast, roast eel, steamed eel, eel pate, eel jam, eels with custard.....

Caxton moored on the village moorings below the church.

St. Peter's church.

We stayed in Upwell on the Saturday and Sunday nights moving off to wards Salters lode sharp on Monday morning for our booked slot of 12.00.  Moving out through Outwell, above, the remains of a windmill now converted into a house.

Passing through Outwell and Nordelph.

Here we are moored on the lock landing at Salters Lode.  We arrived early and found ourselves seventh in the queue, Matilda Rose being the eighth.  We had to wait for level water because the lock is too small to accommodate boats of our size but watching the activity  and helping Paul (lock keeper) with the lock as well as giving the dogs a run before we crossed the tidal Gt. Ouse