Oldies On Tour

Marian and Russell arrived at 10.00am and we quickly went to Tesco for some fuel for the Generator and some food for us, we then had a coffee before Marian left, with a big bag of our washing, very grateful for that.
Entering the double locks at the entrance of the canal, we meandered

Very peaceful

through a very quiet canal, with Russell

Going through the tunnel

being navigator, and me over seeing the locks with him, after three locks and one automatic lifting bridge, we stopped for some refreshments,the boys went in the local pub, whilst I cooked bacon butties, which were soon devoured and we were on our way again. Six more locks and two lifting bridges, we stopped for the night, I cooked dinner, and we then walked to

Navigator Russell

We spotted a milkman!

another pub, which took us about twenty minutes, so we were already for a pint or two…
when we got back we played UNO, which I am pleased to say I won.

Friday morning we had breakfast before starting again, this time we stopped for water, and the customary pooh, before moving on, we wanted to go to Uttoxeter,

Uttoxeter Canal closed

but sadly that arm of the canal has been closed, so we could only get to Leek, which we arrived at lunchtime. We were very disappointed as we are now in the middle of nowhere, with a twenty minute walk to Morrison’s and a lot longer to Leek itself.

Russell helping Geoff with a new App!

We walked to Morrison’s, did some shopping had a cream tea, then returned, and waited for Marian and Martin to arrive. After installing our new printer to our IPads,thank you Martin for coming to our rescue again! we went for a quick look at Leek, and a lovely curry. We finished the

Looking over the aquaduct

evening back at the boat for coffees, before we were left on our own again.

Saturday morning, we were up and away before 8.00am, we decided an early start would complete our journey back to The Trent and Mersey Canal, we have to decide what we are doing, and where we are going, as so many canals are closing due to the lack of water. We arrived back at 1.30pm, had lunch, a lazy afternoon, and an early night.

Sunday morning we dropped Pat off at Stone railway station and headed back to the boat through the high street, again another town centre packed with charity shops. Apart from venturing out to Morrison’s, we stayed in and around the boat as the weather was indecisive, couldn’t decide whether to rain continually or not.

We left Stone the following morning after spending 2-nights on a 1-night mooring (we should have read the notice earlier) and headed

Wedgewood museum

north to the Wedgwood Factory. Neither of us had been to the visitor centre or the Museum before so were looking forward to it, though Christine was far keener than I was to visit.

After mooring at Bridge 104, we followed the signs to the factory but they weren’t very accurate and we did an un-planned

Pots made from wicker at entrance

detour to get there. Along the way we did contemplate not bothering as seeing the factory through the trees frustrated us as we struggled to find the way there, but hey ho, we persevered and duly arrived.

The original Wedgwood factory was in an area called Etruria within the

Josiah Wedgewood

Potteries region, but because of major subsidence due to coal mining in the area over the years, by the first half of the 20th century manufacturing the factory was sinking and was forced to move. The

Josiah Wedgewood

present site in Barlaston, a few miles from Etruria was selected; they even built their own railway station called “Wedgwood” just outside the factory.

In the museum there is a piece of china from every design and shape that has been made ever since Josiah Wedgwood started his pottery business in

Overlooking the factory

1759. The collection is so vast that it would take several weeks to look at everything, but in the short time we were there we got

Dragon made out of china

a good flavour of what the company has made over the years. It is also very evident why Wedgwood was so popular in the 18^th and 19^th century judging by the various European royal houses that patronised their products. Next we went round the

Officially no photos

factory and this was quite amazing, we were quite amazed how labour intensive the operation is. Though there are modern ovens and mechanical handling equipment, scores of people are employed to carry out the decorations on all the various products. There are rows ladies and some men sitting at workstations delicately applying decorations to cups, plates and teapots etc. We were mesmerised and stood watching

Marian went on a previous day

in awe at their skills, steady hands, professionalism and the pride they took on their work.   We spoke to a few and were surprised how long they had worked there. In the “blurb” they talk about how the various skills have been handed down from generation to

Showing us how to do it!

generation and it was evident to us this actually does go on, even in todays world. Of course today Wedgwood is not a family run business, it is part of the “Fiskars” Group who own

Marian enjoying a full cream tea

amongst many others “Royal Copenhagen”; “Waterford”; “Gerber”; “Royal Albert”, and “Royal Doulton”.

Halfway during our tour we visited

We had finger sandwiches and tea.

their “Tea Emporium” and we each enjoyed a rather expensive pot of tea in an ornate Wedgwood teapot and fine bone china cups accompanied by finger sandwiches.

On the way out we popped into the “seconds” shop but couldn’t find

Enjoying my cuppa!

anything suitable for the boat!!!!!

Stoke Minster

We now headed onto Stoke proper, stopping for a night along the way. Christine is still experiencing a small issue with her house; no water, no electricity; nothing major but it is holding up proceedings and she has received the forms electronically but needs to print them off, sign and scan before returning them, so we found a PC World, bought a printer and did the business; hopefully her building works will continue now.

We decided to spend the day in Stoke on Trent, so walked into the town centre but what a disappointment; it is thoroughly rundown boarded up shops, numerous charity shops, discount stores and a poor excuse for a market; I must say Campo Verde’s Sunday market is bigger, and that’s saying a something!!!!! Even getting a mid morning cup of coffee was difficult, we had to resort to a pub! Not everything was disappointing; by the time we had returned to the boat we had

Two of the restored kilns

completed nearly 9,000 steps.

The other place we wanted to do visit was the Industrial Museum but

Etruria industrial Museum

lo and behold it was closed and upon better inspection noted it only opened when there was something special happening; what’s the point of advertising a museum, encouraging folk to visit and then not open it, perhaps this is indicative of a run down town.

The afternoon was taken up with chores ready for Russell arriving for a night’s stay tomorrow when we will attack the Caldon canal.

Continue reading →

Before setting off at a leisurely pace this morning we brought in all the fenders including the thick ropes around the bows and stern as the last locks before we arrive back on the Shropshire canal are narrow, especially No 1 lock.   This one has one of the walls collapsing inwards, and a boat will get stuck if it has any fenders fitted. The CRT have

One of the carvings

already published a programme of repairs for these locks at the end of the summer; lets hope they last that long!!!!! With the problems at these locks and the amount of traffic going through, a CRT volunteer mans each lock, so with Christine and other boater’s crew, we went through them in a flash. Out of the locks at Hurleston Junction, we turned south and headed towards Nantwich, a full 3-miles away where tomorrow we will be picking Pat up.

Nantwich has supplied rings and visitor moorings sending out a clear

Coffeehouse and library

message that boaters are welcome, unfortunately not every town does that.   Firstly we walked to the train station to find where we had to meet Pat tomorrow and then we meandered around this very quaint Cheshire market town, with numerous buildings not too dissimilar to Chester. In fact there are no fewer than 132

Almshouses dated 1870

listed buildings and structures here, mainly clustered in the town centre.

The origins of this settlement date back to roman times when salt was discovered, and salt has been the mainstay of the local

So many floral arrangements

economy ever since.   It reached its peak in the 16^th century when there were around 400 salt houses

Plaque for Elizabeth 1 supporting the fire restoration

but by the end of the 18^th Century it had almost died out, and the last salt house closed in the mid 19^th century.

Apart from the Canal, there is also the river Weaver that passes through here, and on its banks is a plaque commemorating the great fire of Nantwich 1583-4 and the fact Queen Elizabeth 1^st personally donated money and wood from the local royal forests to re-build Nantwich. Like many other towns around the UK, there is a treasure trove of information that we seldom get a chance to

Nantwich Square

enjoy, like St. Mary’s Church in the centre, recorded in England’s

Nantwich Parish church

Heritage list and is a grade 1 listed building. It dates from the 14^th century, though it needed some major remedial work to stop in sinking due to the removal of salt through the yeas. Apart from a place of worship, during the English civil war St. Mary’s was used as a prisoner of war jail for Royalist troops.

Inside the church

Cheshire Cat Pub

The Cheshire cat, a very old pub we were drawn into for the obligatory pint, built in 1637 it is also a Grade II listed building though when built originally, it was just a couple of cottages. In 1676 a benefactor converted them into widows’ almshouses. Apparently over the years

Inside the Cheshire Cat pub

this building has been many things but now it is a pub and at the back they have built a restaurant and a new 11-bespoke bedroom hotel; The real ale they served was in keeping with the bar area!!!

Pat duly arrived around lunchtime, so this gave us enough time to visit Morrison’s to stock the larder and on the

Sitting enjoying coffee

way back stopped for a coffee at thriving business. It was a combined bookshop and coffee house; they also did food. The combination certainly worked, it was heaving and certainly made a change from the Costa’s of this world. To add to experience, it was situated in another listed building with wonky floors, exposed

Canal Aquaduct over the main road

interior and exterior beams.

All aboard and we were off, heading south arriving at Audlem in time for a couple of pints before dinner at the Shroppie Fly.

The overnight rain had stopped by the time we had breakfasted and we headed for Llangollen. This part of the canal is a little on the narrow

Llangollen Canal no passing

side so passing had to be done with caution but there were two sections about a mile long where it is only wide enough for one boat so somebody has to walk ahead to ensure there is no other boat coming the other way. We were very fortunate, we caught up with a hire boat with a family aboard and the wife, younger and fitter, did the running ahead, phew. Heading through these narrow channels is hard going as the 2-MPH current increases and poor Meg A Star struggles which forces us to rev engine at a higher rate than we want, still when we return we will wiz along.

The more we do, the more we are amazed at the feats of engineering that took place here back in the 1700’s; here we were cruising through a canal that was hacked out of the hillside rock, no wonder it is

Narrow canal cut out of the rock.

narrow.   When we arrived at the end of the navigable canal there was a CRT owned marina where we moored; it was £6-per night including hook-up, cant be bad.

Llangollen apparently takes its name from the Welsh, meaning “a religious settlement” because a monk, later known as St. Collen, founded a church next to the river Dee in the 6^th-century. The town today is a bustling tourist destination with the canal, the heritage railway and the river Dee with its kayakers riding the rapids, though there weren’t

We could have taken the horse drawn carriage

many rapids around currently. We made the effort and walked the two miles to the head of the canal where Thomas Telford

Horse shoe falls

built a “J” shaped weir that controls the River Dee levels, and supplies water straight into the canal system. It is no wonder there is a 2-MPH current flowing down the canal!!!!! The return journey was interrupted by a pint in the hotel with

Hotel with chain bridge in distance

beautiful flowers and built next to a very unusual historical Chain Link Suspension Bridge. We did over 12,000 steps today, that should have seen off our drinks!!!!

The Grade 1 listed stone bridge over the Dee that runs through the town was built in 16^th Century to

Old Railway station

replace the previous bridge built around 1345, though this also replaced an even earlier one built by Henry 1.

Next morning naturally, we had to take a ride on the Heritage train. The railway track follows the river through the Dee valley, stopping at a couple of stations en route and arriving at a temporary station on the outskirts of Corwen, a small “unassuming” town that had a café that did superb bacon rolls (yum yum) and a barber where I had a very good haircut. Oh yes there was an interesting Norman church that had a

Me prayinging for help!

number of kneeling stones. These are stones placed near graves where the mourners can kneel to say prayers over the graves of the departed; apparently this is a local tradition only to be found in a few churches in this area.  There was also an “old work house”, the

The work house

complete original building in the shape of a cross so that the inmates can all be separated. Men and women that were fit enough to work lived separately in two blocks, and men and women that were too old to work lived separately in the remaining two blocks. Today the workhouse has portioned into small units.

Apart from the aforementioned, today Corwen is best known for its connections with “Owain Glyndwr”, who in September 1400, proclaimed himself the “Prince of Wales” and started a Welsh revolt against King Henry IV, seeking independence from England; where have I heard that before!!! By 1409 it was all over and he departed this world soon after in 1415.

Brilliant day out

We returned to Llangollen in the old British Railways rolling stock, pulled by 1934 medium sized locomotive (5199) taken out of service in March 1963. The Loco is owned by the Llangollen Railway, it has been an overhauled, completed in 2014 and now pulls one of the heritage trains several times a day to Corwen and back, a 20-miles round trip.

The day ended when I tried to light a “throw-away” bar-b-q and failed, so had to resort to the grill; I must get a gas one!!!!

As a matter of interest, to-date we have covered 574-miles and have been through 451-locks, how time flies.