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.