Oldies On Tour

We left first thing in the morning, as we are re-tracing our steps, looking for places that we can go, as the canals are all closing, due to

Plenty of sheep Around

shortage of water. We stopped at Stone again, Geoff treated me to another Italian meal, as we so enjoyed the first ones and it was excellent again. Next morning, I walked all around the town, I am desperate for a haircut, but Monday, they are all closed, we did some shopping, and moved onto Great Haywood, where we have not been before, we are still on the Trent and Mersey canal. We wanted to stop at Rugeley, but it was packed, no spaces at all, so we travelled onto Armitage, and moored right outside of the Armitage Shanks Factory, where you could hear someone smashing up a toilet or two! In the morning we walked into the village, found a delightful butcher, where we stocked up with fresh meat, I tried to get my hair cut, but oh dear they close on Wednesday! Up quite early and away we had a few locks to do before arriving at Fradley Junction, the first lock took us one hour and a half, there were ten boats either side waiting, still we kept busy talking to everyone. Finally

Lovely scenery on route

we arrived at Fradley and managed to get a parking place right by the car park of the pub, so our visitors could park easily. In the evening we went to a Folk evening, I have been to better ones, this was quite a large group, but the music was more fitting for Morris Dancers, I was very disappointed.

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.

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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.