Passing Great Haywood Junction

Yesterday we passed Great Haywood Junction so this posting on our blog covers the few days from Fradley Junction north to Great Haywood including a visit to the National Trust Property at Shugborough Hall.

The last of the locks around Fradley is Wood End Lock shown here. After this, we had about 7 miles on the flat before reaching Great Haywood. And you can see that the sun came out at last!

Passing through Rugeley (a useful place for shopping) a local resident had decorated their canalside with these lovely ladies. Incidentally, while shopping in Rugeley do note that the hardware shop that we and other boaters often used to patronise and which sadly closed, has now reopened as 'Claire's Emporium' and is well worth a visit.

At Rugeley the canal crosses the River Trent on an aqueduct. As we make progress up the Trent Valley, the river is getting smaller day by day.

After a lock-free few miles we came to Colwich Lock shown here. If you look carefully you can see cows crossing the bridge by the lock.

We've always admired the Gunnera growing in this garden by the canal above Colwich Lock.

We moored after Haywood Lock in order to visit Shugborough Hall. The path to get there crosses the Essex Bridge shown here which is reputed to be the longest packhorse bridge in Britain. The bridge is over 400 years old and crosses the confluence of the Rivers Trent and Sow.

Shugborough Hall is a splendid mansion and we enjoyed visiting again.

This is the carved plaster ceiling in the dining room. It shows the dawning of the day with Phaeton flying above the chariot holding the flaming torch representing the sun. Aurora as the dawn leads the way and Apollo is driving the chariot.

This is the drawing room.

This photo taken as we crossed back over the Essex Bridge shows the River Sow to the left and the Trent to the right. If you study the picture you can see that the Trent is very muddy and the Sow has clear water.

Here, looking back, is Great Haywood Junction where the Staffs and Worcs Canal joins the Trent and Mersey. To the right under the bridge leads to Wolverhampton and eventually to the River Severn at Stourport. The Staffs and Worcs was part of the original grand plan to link with canals the four rivers Trent, Severn, Thames and Mersey.

The sign at the junction shows Wolverhampton to the left (as we headed north) with "The Trent" behind us and "The Potteries" ahead.

As I prepare this posting we are moored in Stone and will tomorrow be heading north towards Stoke on Trent. No rain today and even some sunshine but it would be good to have a little more warmth. It is supposed to be summer!
 

 

Turning onto the Trent and Mersey Canal

This posting to our blog passes not one, not two, but three canal junctions, first Fazeley then Huddlesford and finally today to Fradley Junction where the Coventry Canal meets the Trent and Mersey Canal. So here are some pictures of the last few days:

From Marston Junction where we left the Ashby Canal we have travelled up the Coventry Canal, passing round Nuneaton where we were able to do some shopping and past Hartshill Boat Yard which is used by Canal and River Trust for canal maintenance. The clock tower is distinctive.

This view is taken looking back from the top lock of the 11 Atherstone locks. We went down 5 of these and then moored for ready access to the station as Ian had to go home on Tuesday for a hospital appointment.

Here is Leo in the top lock at Atherstone.

And here we are just coming into Lock 5.

We liked the town of Atherstone and sat admiring the buildings in the Market Square.

After Ian returned to Leo we carried on past Grendon Wharf which features another similar clock tower to Hartshill. You can see two narrowboats in the dry dock under cover probably having their bottoms blacked.

This is Alvecote where a lot of fine historic vessels are moored. The two shown here are Nuneaton (a motor) and Brighton (an unpowered butty) which are owned by a narrowboat trust which does a coal run down south every year crewed by volunteers.

Having come down the two Glascote Locks the canal crosses the River Tame on an aqueduct shown ahead of Leo here. The River Tame is a major tributary of the Trent and rises at Oldbury, west of Birmingham.

Here is the view of the Tame from the aqueduct.

We moored just beyond the aqueduct and walked down to the river. This view shows the rather solid looking structure supporting the canal above. We followed footpaths beside the river into Tamworth which we've not visited before.

Tamworth was once the capital of Mercia and has an imposing castle keep on a Motte. The castle is one of the original ones built by the Normans after the invasion in 1066.

Unfortunately we arrived too late to do a proper tour but peeped into the courtyard to get this view of the Elizabethan improvements building a great hall.

This view was taken looking down from the top of the Motte and shows the gatehouse and a column explained in the next photo.

On the top of the column which dates from 1935 is a carving of Aethelflaed who was the eldest daughter of Alfred the Great and, being a great warrier herself, ruled Mercia and most of what is now England from 911 to her death in 918.

Here at Fazeley is the first of the three canal junctions. Under the bridge is the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal which goes up locks to the edge of Birmingham.

Sorry about this photo! The trouble is that the helmsman needs to have an eye out for other boats coming through the junction and Leo had zoomed past before I noticed that the picture was cut off on the right. Anyway the arm which is the Birminham and Fazeley goes to Birmingham, we had come from Coventry and were heading to Fradley.

This photo is looking back having passed through the junction. To the left under the  bridge is where we had come from and to the right is the Birmingham and Fazeley.

A few miles further on we came to Huddlesford Junction. This is a bit of cheat in that it is no longer a navigable route. Once however one could turn left here and head to Ogley Junction where the canal (once part of the Wyrley and Essington Canal, but now commonly referred to as the Lichfield Canal) started a climb of 30 locks to reach the area north of Birmingham. The sign post at this junction is shown below. The arm of the old canal that remains is now used for moorings by the Lichfield Cruising Club.

We had a walk that evening and passed close to the present end of the arm that will perhaps one day be the restored Lichfield Canal. The curious barriers are from the HS2 site which is also in this area. This will be part of the truncated route where trains can link into existing lines to go north to Manchester and Crewe.

And finally today in time for an early lunch at the cafe we came to Fradley Junction where the Coventry Canal comes to an end where it meets the Trent and Mersey Canal. This view is taken from the Coventry Canal. Left goes north on the Trent and Mersey and right goes east towards Burton on Trent. We turned left. The Swan pub opposite has been a boaters watering hole for many generations.

There are five locks at Fradley on the Trent and Mersey. This view is taken looking over 'Junction Lock' which is the last one before the Coventry Canal goes left. In the distance you might be able to see what is erroneously called 'Middle Lock' (it is not the middle one of the five).

 So now we are on the Trent and Mersey and heading north to Rugeley tomorrow and later to Stone and Stoke on Trent. We had to queue for a lock today and there certainly seem to be quite a lot of boats up here. As you can see from the last photo we have had some sun today but the northerly wind leaves it still rather chilly.

The Ashby Canal

 

Having passed through another canal junction yesterday, it is time to do a another posting on our blog. Actually this was Marston Junction which we've passed before. But the Ashby Canal is a dead end so we were bound to come back the same way. This posting is all about our trip up the Ashby Canal the navigable portion of which is 22 miles long and without any locks.

On our first night on the Ashby we moored near to Higham on the Hill and walked up to the village in the evening. They were having a children's hunt for nursery rhyme themes in woollen tableaux either knitted or crochet. This was of course the Old Woman who lived in a Shoe.

A preserved steam railway called the Battlefield Line runs parallel with the canal giving tourists access  to the Battle of Bosworth site where Richard of York (Richard III) was killed by the future King Henry VII to end the Wars of the Roses and to usher in the Tudor dynasty. During the week the trains are usually run by diesel locos, but being a weekend we enjoyed the site of this GWR steam loco.

The Ashby has some fine stone built canal bridges, over 60 of them in its 22 miles. This one is Bridge 61 near the present end of the navigation.

A little way beyond the present end is this engine house which used to pump water from a well near here to Hinckley quite a few miles away. The engine house is now a private house.

Last time we came this way (2019) we were able to go beyond the present navigable limit to a new bridge from which this picture was taken. Because the winding hole beyond the bridge is only for max 52 foot boats, we had to pull Leo backwards for a third of a mile to reach this point! Since then this newly restored extension to the canal seems to be suffering a leak and the canal authority won't let you go this far. The Ashby Canal Society have the intention of restoring the canal to reach its original end near Moira. On the day after our arrival (Wednesday 29 May) we cycled there.

The last few miles of this part of the canal are in water but do not join to the section Leo had come up. The picture shows the final canal basin at Conkers.

The Ashby Canal was built primarily to carry coal dug out of mines in and around Moira. Sadly this was also its demise in that the land sank into the mines and severed the canal. The Society has built a new lock (shown under the bridge) at Moira to allow the last mile to be reached by boat. This lock is 9 or 10 feet deep which gives a good idea of how much the land has sunk, given that originally no lock was needed.

And here is the view of Moira Lock from above. Oddly it is a wide lock in a land of narrow canals and it has three sets of gates so that you can use part of the full length of the lock, depending on craft size.

A short way above the lock we came to Moira Furnace which was a short-lived attempt to make iron using the coal and also local limestone. The iron was never good enough in quality and the enterprise failed.

In this view from below, the huge furnace is more obvious. It was stoked from above on a bridge over the canal.

There are some characteristic milestones on the Ashby. This one from beyond the present navigable limit indicates you are 28 miles from the start and 2 miles from the far end at Conkers.

Working our way  back towards Leo (broadly south) we eventually ran out of water at Donisthorpe. From here back to Leo we had to use roads.

Having turned Leo round at Snarestone we set off back down the Ashby Canal and went to the visitor centre for the Battle of Bosworth. Here is the pennant of the victor, Henry Tudor ..

... and here is Richard's pennant with the wild boar. Richard of course is the king that had the misfortune to be buried under a car park in Leicester, though he now has a very tasteful tomb in the cathedral there.

We rather liked this sculpture in the  Visitor Centre, showing Richard's head on one side and Henry's on the other.

After the Battle, Henry was crowned on a temporary basis at the nearby village of Stoke Golding where the event is commemorated in the village sign.

We changed a gas cylinder at Stoke Golding Wharf which has these attractive cottages. Note the 'poo' wagon to the right!

After several days damp and chilly weather, the sun came out on Sunday as this picture of another fine stone bridge (no 6) shows.

The bridge seen in the distance through this one is the first and last bridge on the Ashby Canal at Marston Junction.

And this picture is taken looking back as we came through Marston Junction turning right onto the Coventry Canal heading north. The narrow section seen through the bridge is the original 'stop lock'. Canal companies jealously guarded their water supplies and put in these locks with very little drops simply to avoid their water supplying the neighbouring company's canal. Nowadays many, though not all, of these have been taken away.

Having turned north on the Coventry Canal our way lies to Atherstone, Polesworth and Tamworth to pass Fazeley Junction where one could turn off to go to the centre of Birmingham. We are not going that way and more will be revealed in our next posting.