Two old canals on the Staffs and Worcs

Having come south down the Shropshire Union we then turned left going north again on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal as far as Great Haywood. So this posting is about a few days on the northern section of the Staffs and Worcs:

We moored on Monday (23rd September) at Hatherton. This was once a canal junction with what is now called the Lichfield and Hatherton Canal and used to connect with the Birmingham Canal Navigations, and might one day do so again. It would provide an alternative route to Huddlesford on the Coventry Canal where we aim to be tomorrow evening. We took our bikes and explored the remains of the first part of the Lichfield and Hatherton. This view is looking from the first bridge towards the junction with the Staffs and Worcs. Leo is moored just out of sight to the right from the junction.

From the junction we cycled under the M6 and soon came to this bridge which is over the course of the old canal. The water still flows towards the Staffs and Worcs and the L&H still acts as a feeder.

Further on the road crossed this bridge over the old canal. The low headroom suggests the bridge has been lowered and, although it doesn't show up in the photo, some of the bricks looked as if they were part of an arch bridge originally.

Here, near Four Crosses, the canal crosses under the road by means of a sump, so there is no navigation at all at this point.

On a wet Tuesday morning we carried on to Penkridge. This picture shows Gailey Lock which is the first lock down from the summit level of the Staffs and Worcs. The round house allowed the lock keeper to see boats coming. There is now a tempting souvenir shop on the ground floor.

In Rodbaston Lock later that morning Helen rescued a toad that was trying to get out of the lock.

The canal twists through the village of Penkridge dropping down two more locks. There are good pubs and shops including a bakers where we bought delicious pies and cakes. This view is of a cottage (left) and the old gaol (right) which is open a couple of days a week, but not on Tuesdays.

Here we are on Wednesday morning heading into Penkridge Lock.

"I don't believe it" in Victor Meldrew tones comes to mind at this sign above the lock at Penkridge!

We moored on Wednesday evening close to Acton Trussell and went for a walk. It started out cloudy but the sun soon came out and we had to carry all our excess clothes. The rain we've had recently has swollen the rivers. This is a very full River Penk.

Thursday we stopped briefly close to where the Stafford Canal Link once allowed boats to lock down from the Staffs and Worcs onto the River Sow and into the centre of Stafford a couple of miles away. After the rain stopped we walked to where work continues on restoring this link. The plan is to reinstate a canal basin here and at the far end away from the camera a narrows will lead to an aqueduct over the River Penk into the River Sow which leads to Stafford.

And by the side of the canal basin the footings have been built up where the lock keeper's house used to be.

The valley where the Penk and Sow meet was quite flooded and we saw cows wading belly deep through the floods. Apparently this is normal after a few days of heavy rain.

This wall is alongside the Staffs and Worcs and you can just see where the parapet rises where a bridge used to cross over the Stafford Canal link.

This sign has been installed by the junction. River Canal Rescue (the boaters' AA or RAC) do in fact have an office here and perhaps they sponsored the sign.

Here is a turnover bridge where the towpath changes to the other side of the canal. Turnover bridges with spiral ramps were designed so that a horse towing a narrowboat could cross the canal and continue towing without the rope having to be detached.

Here is we are waiting for the small lock (only a four foot fall) at Tixall. Even on a gloomy day it was still pretty.

Tixall Wide is an expansive stretch of water crossed by the canal. It was not an existing lake that was used by the canal builders but was built with the canal to enhance its appearance from the big house nearby. It is a good place to moor but we decided to carry on to Great Haywood.

The big house for which Tixall Wide was built has now gone but the gatehouse shown here can be seen across the fields.

On the left after an aqueduct over the River Trent and just before the junction is a large Anglo Welsh hire boat base. Beyond the bridge is the Trent and Mersey Canal.  Left leads to Stoke on Trent but we turned right heading for Fradley.

Having moored just round the corner on the Trent and Mersey we walked into the Shugborough Estate, once the home of Patrick, Earl of Lichfield. The route there leads over Essex Bridge which crosses the River Trent just beyond its confluence with the River Sow. In the photo the Trent is to the right and the Sow in the middle. To the left is an artificial channel that runs from the Sow through ornamental lakes as part of the formal gardens of Shugborough Hall. The Trent was running brown and muddy but the Sow was clear.

We had a look round the house. This is the ceiling of the Red Dining Room.

Brothers Thomas and George Anson made a number of improvements to the house. George was a renowned admiral who circumnavigated the world in 1740-44 and came back with plentiful plunder and a keen interest in architecture and art from around the globe. He had this Chinese House built on the estate after his voyage.

So now we are on the Trent and Mersey Canal which we have not seen since we left it at Middlewich quite a few weeks ago. Our aim now is to go south once more for a short way to Fradley Junction where we will turn onto the Coventry Canal. We still have a couple of weeks cruising to look forward to before we set down our windlasses for the winter.

The southern end of the Shroppie

This posting covers the last of the delightful Shropshire Union Locks and our travels along the rest of the Canal to Autherley Junction where it meets the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. So we start with Tyrley Locks, the 5 locks coming out of Market Drayton heading south.

Below the first of the Tyrley Locks is a rock cutting that makes you wonder why the final lock wasn't put in a little further north to keep the canal closer to the natural lie of the land.

Having gone up two locks, the third took us out of the rock cutting into the sunshine as we climbed the middle lock.

Here we are coming up to the top lock.

The buildings around the top lock create a classic and widely recognised canal view. We have four little pictures in the saloon on Leo of well known canal views and one is of Tyrley Top Lock.

This little boat seen moored above the Tyrley Locks must be a contender for the smallest narrowboat on the canals!

Above the Tyrley Locks is one of the deep and narrow cuttings that the Shroppie is famous for. This one is Woodseaves Cutting. It must have taken a lot of picks and shovels to dig it out.

A few miles after the cutting is this factory which used from 1911 to 1961 to produce chocolate 'crumb' using local milk which was then transported by canal boat to Cadbury's factory at Bourneville just to the south of Birmingham.

Beyond the factory is the Shebdon Embankment where we moored for the night on Friday (20th September). On Saturday we came off the embankment into Grubb Street Cutting where this bridge (called High Bridge) forms probably the most recognised view of the Shroppie. You will see that there is a horizontal strut in the bridge arch and on top is a mini telegraph pole. It no longer carries wires but it is such a well known sight that it is preserved.

On Saturday we stopped at Norbury Wharf shown here for diesel. At 76p a litre it is one of the cheapest places on the system to fill up and one of the prettiest!  Beyond the two boats moored on the left is a towpath bridge over an arm now used for boat repairing. This used to be the Newport Branch heading towards, you've guessed it, Newport.

Gnosall is a pretty village a couple of miles south of Norbury Junction and then the canal goes through its only tunnel at Cowley.  It is very short at 81 yards but the tunnel and the cutting either side is cut through solid rock.  It was designed to be 690 yards long but the rock was so unstable that the tunnel was opened out as a cutting for much of its length.

We moored on Saturday out in the countryside and, after a couple of hours servicing the engine, we walked into Church Eaton which proved to be yet another delightful place.

On Sunday and with a change in the weather, we went into Brewood crossing the Stretton Aqueduct shown here. It crosses the A5 and represents one Telford transport project crossing another.

Isn't it wonderful how those Victorian architects embellished their creations?  The carved columns on the aqueduct really add to its appearance.

Here is a view looking down to the A5.  Not much traffic as this section is by-passed by the M54 as far as Telford.

The canal passes through Brewood (pronounced 'Brood') in a deep cutting. We climbed up steps out of the cutting to do some shopping and to visit the Bridge Inn for Sunday lunch. Our timing for lunch was perfect as it rained fairly hard while we ate and then stopped to let us explore the village. As we don't like mooring in gloomy cuttings we carried on out of the village after lunch passing this view across fields to Brewood Church.

We moored a couple of miles south of Brewood where our zoom lens could pick up the blocks of flats in Wolverhampton. We've been noticing Midlands accents for the last couple of days so we can now say that we are no longer in the north.

On Monday we came down the last 3 miles of the Shroppie to Autherley Junction. The Staffs and Worcs Canal is just beyond the bridge and we turned left heading towards Great Haywood. Leo is sitting in the stop lock just before the junction. This lock raises the level only a few inches and seems pretty pointless until you understand the need for the Staffs and Worcs Canal not to lose all its water down the 'new' Shropshire Union Canal, hence the expression 'stop lock'.

Here's the view looking back along the Shroppie past a boatyard where the Napton hire boats belong.

This is the sign at the junction. We have come from the direction of Chester and we are now bound for Great Haywood. Stourport is where the canal meets the River Severn.

Here, looking back, is the shapely bridge over the start of the Shroppie.

Oddly having come south along the Shroppie our way is now north along the Staffs and Worcs. But canals seldom lend themselves to direct journeys. We could go via Birmingham but we have decided to avoid that and all the extra locks. Until you've been through Birmingham on a canal boat you don't realise that it is on top of a hill.

So what did we think of the Shropshire Union Canal? Lots of people seem to love the Shroppie but it is really not one of our favourites. We like canals that meander across the countryside whereas the Shroppie goes in pretty straight lines making use of huge embankments and deep cuttings to achieve this. The Shroppie was built much later than most of the other canals and it is more similar to a modern motorway. It might be a good idea for the speedy carriage of goods but that is not what attracts us to the canals. When we are on top of a big embankment or down in a gloomy cutting (one of our pet hates) we feel separated from the countryside and the rest of the world rather than part of it. Having said that, the flights of locks are a delight.

Heading south on the Shroppie

After our excursion on the Llangollen Canal, we are now going south on the Shropshire Union Canal towards the Midlands. The weather has definitely improved perhaps because the schools have gone back. But to preserve our narrative, we need to begin where we left off near Ellesmere.

This is Blake Mere near Ellesmere, one of the several lakes round here left over from the last ice age. The canal goes round three sides of the mere.

On Saturday we moored on the Whitchurch Arm, a short branch of the Llangollen Canal leading towards Whitchurch. It's a small town has some fine old buildings as shown in this picture of Mill Street.

And this building in the High Street which looks as if it used to be a bank.

We visited St Alkmund's Church which was built in 1713. It is an open airy building but, even better, they were having an open day and we arrived just in time to join another couple for a guided trip up the tower.

In a room for bellringers part way up the tower is this rhyming instruction on how bellringers should behave.

We peeped into the bell chamber and later heard the clock chime when we were up on the roof,

Here is the view from the top of the tower looking out over the town.

From the church tower we could see some of the Shropshire Hills in the distance to the south. We think this might be the Long Mynd but we're not absolutely sure.

We went on to Wrenbury on Sunday and had just moored the boat when there was a loud toot and two traction engines came along the back road opposite. We had roast pork at the Dusty Miller pub seated at a table in the window where we could watch boats coming through the lift bridge.

  On Monday we went through that lift bridge and also this one - Wrenbury Church Lift Bridge.

This is the top of the four Hurleston Locks which mark the end of the Llangollen Canal where it joins the Shropshire Union. Fortunately the bottom lock, which is gradually collapsing inward, was still working. It is going to be closed in a month or so for major rebuilding and at the moment traditional working boats which are a couple of inches wider than Leo cannot come this way.

On Monday evening we moored near the bottom of the Hurleston Locks and on Tuesday we continued to Nantwich. In this picture you can see Nantwich Basin to the right and the canal under the bridge to the left. The basin marks the end of the Chester Canal. Telford built the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal from Autherley (near Wolverhampton) to here had intended it to join the Chester Canal at the end of the basin. However the local landowner wasn't having a canal across his land so the tall Nantwich embankment was built to take the canal closer to town and joined the Chester Canal at this bridge. It is all the Shropshire Union canal these days but it changes from broad to narrow at the bridge.

Here is the view down as we crossed the aqueduct over the main road on the curving embankment.

And this is looking back towards the aqueduct. We moored near the end of the  embankment and cycled into town to buy some gin to go with some sloes we'd picked the previous evening and then continued up the two Hack Green Locks into Audlem where we moored below the flight of 15 locks.

We walked up most of the flight that afternoon and back across the fields into the village of Audlem.  Many of the bridges are protected by these rubbing strips. You can see the extent to which the iron has been worn away by ropes from the horse-drawn narrow boats in times gone by.

This is looking down the Audlem flight from a bridge above lock 4.

We had a drink at the Shroppie Fly pub shown here but had to go back to Leo to eat as they don't serve food on a Tuesday.  The origin of the 'Shroppie Fly' name lies in the Fly boats that travelled the canal.  These were the cargo airliners of their day carrying goods at the dizzy speed of 7 mph running day and night continuously.  They were horse drawn with horses replaced frequently and these boats had priority at locks.  They were used to carry perishable and valuable cargoes.

We found this embroidery in the church in Audlem. The pictures all have local links and include the canal and a railway which is now disused. In the middle at the bottom is a school production of Dick Whittington.

This narrowboat called Spey was built in 1937 in Uxbridge as a powered rather than horse drawn boat and was used to transport crude oil. She was moored at Audlem.

Yesterday (Wednesday 18th) we came up the 15 Audlem locks and this picture shows the top lock. These locks are a delight to operate being only around 6 foot rise each and kept in good order. Some of the by-washes around the locks are a bit fierce but otherwise it was an easy climb especially as there were lots of boats coming down so we rarely had to reset a lock before going in.

Here is the milestone close to our mooring at the top of the locks.

Wednesday evening we had this wonderful sunset. We didn't have our usual afternoon walk from this mooring as Ian was trying to make the rear hatch slide better - it has gone a bit stiff this year. So Leo was open to the weather for several hours while we re-glued one of the runners. It now seems a little better but we might have to do the other runner too.

Today (Thursday 19th September) we have come up the 5 Adderley Locks and into Market Drayton. Helen was taken by this rather pretty cow watching us pass her field.

We moored in open country just outside Market Drayton and this is the view of the church from our mooring.

We walked into town coming down off the high embankment where this road tunnels under the canal. The Shropshire Union Canal was a late addition to the canal network by Thomas Telford and while the early canals tended to follow the contours of the land bending about to find the level route, Telford's approach was to run pretty well straight with high embankments and deep cuttings to reduce the mileage and speed the cargo carrying.

Market Drayton has more lovely old buildings, some of which like this pub survived a great fire in 1651.

A grey heron visited our mooring this evening.  Normally we see herons perched on the ground beside the canal but this one flew right up to the top of the tree across the canal from us and then entertained us with a series of short croaks.

So this brings us up to date. For the next few days we will be heading south to Autherley Junction near Wolverhampton where the Shropshire Union meets the Staffs and Worcs Canal.