Oldies On Tour

We arrived in Chester early afternoon on Wednesday 11^th July, mooring near the Indian Restaurant we were booked to visit with

Some of the beautiful buildings in the city

Leisha and Dave Burns that evening. They had returned home for a few days and the four of us took the opportunity to meet up for a jocular afternoon and evening; we caught up with all the news whilst enjoying a few beers and a couple of bottles of excellent New

Famous clock tower

Zealand wine before venturing into Leisha’s favourite Indian restaurant where our laughter continued over an excellent “curry”.

The following morning we headed towards the “Chester Basin” where the 2-original canals meet the river Dee.   The route passed along the base of a section of the old Roman wall before entering Northgate

Northgate locks

Old city walls

Locks, built in 1770’s, a grade 2 listed staircase raising/lowering canal boats 33 feet. Fortunately there was a CRT

One in one out!

Volunteer in attendance as we met two boats coming up as we were going down, so again we had to do a “shuffle” halfway

Looks scary when you first do it!

down the locks. I have to say we are now very proficient at carrying out this manoeuver.

We arrived at Taylors boatyard where we had booked in for a secure mooring and more importantly to have the engine serviced as well as a few extra repairs to be carried out whilst Christine was back in Spain.

Taylors boatyard is the only original building left on this canal basin and fortunately it is grade 2 listed otherwise I have no doubt it would have gone the way of all the others; it would have been pulled down and modern apartments built in its place. It’s a great shame so much heritage is being lost, much of it sold off by the CRT themselves to fund the rest of the canal network. The current leaseholders, “Pete and Yvette”, apart from looking after boats, are also renovating their facility.

In its heyday this basin was an extremely active inland port, known as “Tower Wharf”, once a busy junction of the Chester Canal with the River Dee and the Ellesmere Canal (Wirral Line) and in 1846 they all became known as the Shropshire Union Canal which was in turn connected to the rest of the network thus enabling all sorts of Manufactured goods to pass through this city.

We met up with Leisha and Dave again, when Dave collected us and took us to their lovely home where we had a good time. During the afternoon, Dave and I popped out to visit the “Gladstone Library”.

Gladstone Library

William Gladstone, British prime minister four times between 1868 and 1894, left his collection of 32,000 books and a substantial financial sum to have this wonderful building created to house his collection of books. This philanthropic gesture was to share his books with people with financial constraints and was open to everybody. Today the library has in excess

Some people f the books

of 250,000 books and also has accommodation for people who wish to stay and enjoy a literary break, though I was reliably informed one could stay there and treat it just as a hotel.  I don’t think one could talk about Gladstone without mentioning his habit of walking the streets of London at night, hoping to rescue prostitutes from their lives of vice. In 1848 he co-founded the “Church Penitentiary Society Association” for the Reclamation of Fallen Women; he would, it is said, offer streetwalkers a place to sleep, protection from their procurers, and a chance to give up their way of life.  If that wasn’t enough, for relaxation he chopped down trees and two of his axes are on display as part of his memorabilia.   Of course he also had some spectacular political successes as well!!!!!

During the time here in Chester we have enjoyed walking around the streets and walls of this historically important city especially the

Walking within the walls

beautiful Grade 1 listed cathedral. Originally started in 1093 as an abbey and developed and altered many times during the course of History.     As with many ecclesiastical buildings, everything changed during the dissolution of the monasteries and in 1541 it became an Anglican

Chester Cathedral

Cathedral and the seat of the Bishop of Chester.

We have had a mixed bag of weather during our stay, sun of course but many cloudy days with a number of rain showers, unlike the south that has had wall-to-wall sunshine.

On the Friday I drove down to Gatwick to collect Christine, returning the same evening but being Friday stopped off for a meal to let the traffic clear before heading back to Chester. We avoided the M25, Tom Tom sorted us a good route driving through “rat runs” slow, but kept going and picked up the M40 at Beaconsfield; good decision. As the traffic was clear and to speed things up we went up the M6 Toll, so far so good but when we joined the old M6, the traffic was at a complete stop!!!!!!

Before leaving Chester we did the customary “Hop-on, Hop-off bus”, it

Part of the old walls of St.Johns

was very enlightening especially the history, starting when the Romans

Inside the grounds of Cathedral

arrived in 79 AD who built the first fort. Interestingly, when the Romans built the stonewalls surrounding the city, they dug a defensive ditch outside, and when the Chester canal was built, these defensive ditches became part of the Canal; my forward thinking by the Romans or what!!!

All the jobs and service completed by Taylors Boatyard; a visit to the cinema on the Monday night to see “Mama Mia, here we go again” very good and the cinema was one of the most comfortable we had been to. Tomorrow we are off and heading for Llangollen.

Up at the crack of dawn, not sure why, but every time we moved the boat went bang, so we are obviously on a rock or something, we decided to move off, (7am)and have breakfast later. We are now on Shropshire Union Canal, and with no locks, I was able to catch up with the washing, my machine has died altogether, not really surprised, it’s been a pain, one day it would work the next nothing, one day it would go through the whole program, next only half of it, I was beginning to think it was me, but now I know it’s the machine, hopefully we can get

Unusual bridge

it sorted when we get to Chester.
We stopped at Wheaton Aston Lock, took on water, and did the

Just enough for a boat to pass

rubbish and of course the Pooh! Whilst we were filling up we had breakfast, before moving off. We did 22 miles with just one lock, we then came to Woodseaves Cutting where it is very narrow, and not always room to pass, and of course we met two other boats. The deep rock cutting was cut entirely by men without powered machines, very impressive. After the cut, we came to the five Tyrley Locks, where we made our descent towards Market Drayton and stop for the night.
No rush today, we left about 9.00am after breakfast, we did about four miles, before doing the Adderley Locks only five and for once very easy, maybe I am getting fitter. We stopped for the night.
Next day we set off to do the next lot of locks, we decided to travel three miles to the bottom lock of the 15 Audlem flight, we did the first two locks, then stopped to watch the F1 qualifier at Silverstone, Hamilton is on pole, should be a good race, the England game was on, so we decided to do a few locks while it was quiet, we did another 11

Pub on canal side at Audlam

before stopping at Audlem. A couple who were coming up, left most of the gates open, so we had quite an easy trip down.
Audlem was hosting a “Party in the Park” so we tried to get tickets, but sadly they were all sold, never mind, we stopped and had a drink at the bar on the canal, which had a mock up of a narrowboat as the bar, we then walked all around the

Shroppie Fly pub

The bar inside the pub

tiny village, and where ever you went you could hear the music, which sounded quite good. It was a very tiny

Audlem Mill shop and workshop

village, yet they sold 3000 tickets! There was a massive 15th century

15th century church

church set on a hill, it looked very splendid. We walked back to the bar had another pint, then went back to Meg. The music stopped before 11.pm so we were able to get our beauty sleep.
Next morning we were off to Nantwich, we had the last of the flight (2 Locks) to do, number one was easy, but there was a queue at the second, as everyone was leaving from the party, we were fourth in line, plus others were coming up, I went to help on the locks, we got three boats through, everyone was helping, then it was our turn, well everyone had left, accept the one waiting behind me, I started the lock, then asked the guy if he would help me, well the man just lost it, he was a nutter, there were other people around, who listened to him ranting and raving, and just didn’t understand what his problem was, anyway, eventually I finished the lock and we moved on, but he was a nasty piece of work.
We travelled onto Nantwich where we stopped, we were very nervous as we knew the other boat was following us, he was quite scary, we also think he had been drinking, anyway we stopped, and he passed us, with no problems. We then settled down to watch the Grand Prix, which was very exciting.

The Bumble Shuffle

From Nantwich we travelled onto Banbury, where there is a two staircase lock, which required a bit of thought, especially as someone was coming in at the bottom as two boats were coming down, I shouted at them, and she said it’s ok, we are used to doing this. They called it the Bunbury shuffle, so another different experience. We travelled onto Rowton Moor, not much here, but we did find a nice pub where

The Cheshire Cat Pub

Geoff enjoyed a couple of pints, tomorrow we will be in Chester.

Tuesday 3^rd we left our mooring on the Severn quite early and headed straight into the first double lock of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal; we were through it with no issues and headed straight into the second double lock; here we had a problem. There was a boat waiting to come down and the chap left his boat and came to help Christine by closing down the sluices on the top lock whilst I was waiting patiently in the bottom lock chamber for the middle gates to open. Time marched on and nothing seemed to happening and I noticed Christine and the other guy struggling to move the lock gate. I scrambled up the lock ladder to gave them a hand; nothing. Christine had seen a couple of CRT men earlier and went looking for them to report a problem, in the mean time I asked the other man if he had let both paddles down properly, yes he said emphatically; but looking down into the chamber there seemed to be too much water swirling around so I casually walked over to look; what a plonker, he hadn’t closed them off so we could have been there all day!!!!! Oops and he went and dropped the paddle, now all was well and we were now in the top basin.

Interestingly there was no town or village in this area before the canal was built; Stourport-Upon-Severn was a “New Town” of its day. When the Staffordshire and Worcester Canal was completed in 1768, and joined the River Severn here, the area blossomed around the basin with trade, and once the Birmingham Canal link was complete, prosperity in this area followed.

Whilst in the basin, we made use of the domestic facilities before we were off, heading towards Kidderminster.

We moored right outside the Kidderminster TESCO, very convenient

Engine letting of steam

but we didn’t head for TESCO, no we headed for the “Severn Valley Railway” station. Naturally it couldn’t be near the canal; no it was the other side of the town, uphill all the way!!!!!

At station with old toilets, milk churns and fire buckets

The Severn Valley Railway is one of those heritage lines that have sprung up after that “Infamous Doctor Beaching” closed down all the un-profitable branch lines, this one closed in 1962.   The Heritage railway society was set up in 1965 and today the railway runs from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth with 4 regular stops and 2 halts (request stop) in between.   We arrived at Kidderminster station with time to get our tickets, board

One of the carriages

and source a compartment for ourselves, fortunately for us (but not the train society), we had the pick as the train was very empty.   It was very nostalgic sitting in the old style individual compartments that

No comment!

were common back in the day, we even sat in the first class compartment for a short while, but didn’t stop as we only had 2^nd class tickets and there was a ticket inspector on board!!!!

We got off at the Hampton Loade stop and

A couple of the many engines on show

visited the “Engine House”. Naturally this only really appealed to me but we were pleasantly surprised. Of course there were Engines of all sorts and sizes to look at but the two interesting displays were the post office carriage and the royal train.   We first visited the post

Me sorting the post

office carriage which is original and set up as it was before postcodes with all the “pigeon holes” for the various cities, towns and villages etc., so that the sorters could deal with all the post as the train thundered through the night.

The next carriage was built for King George

Kings lounge

6^th at the start of the war. Very interesting, unlike previous royal trains it was very austere, reflecting the issues at the time, but had very modern communication systems as he went around the country boosting morale etc. This carriage was also different to

Kings bedroom and office

others, being extremely heavy due to the “armour plating” it had an extra set of bogy wheels and springs.   We were guided around this carriage and apart from being “austere” it had everything the King needed. There was also a duplicate carriage made for The Queen, her carriage is now in the York Museum.

Back on the train and we continued up the beautiful Severn Valley and

Geoff enjoying first class

arrived at Bridgnorth. We had spent a few hours in Bridgnorth a few years ago so decided to get the next return back but this allowed us sufficient time to enjoy a drink at the station bar. Everything was very nostalgic except the prices, what a shame!!!!

The return trip was uneventful but enjoyed seeing everything from the opposite direction. We lingered at Kidderminster station and visited another small museum full of assorted railway memorabilia before walking

One of the pretty stations

back to the boat, downhill, hooray!!!

England was playing Colombia this evening and we didn’t feel being outside TESCO was a good place to be so headed off towards the Kidderminster lock.   The lock gates were open so in I went, Christine closed the bottom gates behind me and went to open the top ones; I waited patiently but nothing happened, eventually I climbed the lock ladder to see if I could help but we discovered we needed a special key, which we didn’t have so I had to go back down this slippery, algae covered ladder and reverse out. I had to keep going backwards, under the road bridge until we found a straight bit of canal to moor against, nearly back to where we had started.   We didn’t watch the match but heard the screams and cheers from the town’s people of Kidderminster and knew we had won. The rest of the evening was noisy as just behind the brick wall we were by, we had swapped TESCO car park for a outlet centre car park with a couple of fast food places that serve alcohol, still everything seemed good humoured and we slept.

I walked up to the lock early next morning and low and behold there was a boat just pulling up and he kindly let us in the lock first. The chap also explained what key we needed; it was called a “Conservation Key” and it is used in town Centre’s where there has been vandalism. Now we had a challenge to get one!!!!

We came across a CRT workshop at Stewponey Wharf, hoping to get a key but there was no one at home. We were just about to set off again when the CRT workboat turned up so we asked if they could tell us where to get a key, they did better than that, one of the kind gentlemen gave us one.

One of the three locks

We then came to the “Bratch Locks”, a

Halfway up

flight of 3 interconnected locks raising the canal over 30ft. To operate these locks requires special skills so the CRT people man them with their volunteers. They control access and send boats through in batches of three to preserve water but more importantly to avoid a boat going up at the same time as a boat coming down and trying the impossible, to meet in the middle.

Through the lock and we continued up the Staffs and Worcester, a very pretty canal passing through gentle countryside and many period

One of the many lovely properties on the canal

cottages, most no doubt originally associated with the working canal. We passed the Stourton junction where the Stourbridge canal branches off towards Birmingham and after one more night we passed Aldersley Junction where there is another link into Birmingham. The Staffs and Worcester canal is 46-miles long with 43 locks though we only did 25-miles and went through 33 locks.   When we arrived at Autherley Junction, we headed up the Shropshire Canal.

Boat yard on route

The first lock at the start of the Shropshire is only about 6-inches but this was a method, when built, to keep their own water in their own canal, strange or what.

We had a gentle, lock free run up to Brewood arriving early afternoon. Tonight we had booked a table at the “Shropshire Grill” as it has fond memories for us and it serves excellent food.

We left our mooring just before 8.00am but sadly the lock-keeper was late in opening up, so we had to hover until she was ready, I think Geoff using the bow-thruster got her out of bed, anyway when she did

Cows trying to keep cool

arrive we were quickly through the lock, and now we were on the River Severn.

The River is very wide and sadly not as interesting as the River Avon,flanked by wooded banks that prevent any views of the countryside. There are few signs of habitation or human activity apart from the occasional boat and anglers. Between

Busy at work

Ripple Wharf and Ryall there are regular

Before being loaded

aggregate traffic, so we had to watch out for the barges back and forth.

We stopped at Upton-on-Severn, a delightful town that is well provided with fascinating old timbered and early Georgian buildings, and nearby is the prominent 13th

Heritage centre

century tower with its 18th century copper

Main high street

covered cupola, all that remains of the church that was demolished in 1937. Such a pretty place glad we stopped now.

One of the old buildings

Back to the boat and heading for Worcester, first we came to Diglis

Diglis Locks

locks, well they were huge, one held 54,000 gallons of water, and the one we went in

Made us look very small

held 38,000 gallons, I have never seen such huge locks. We left the lock and travelled into Worcester, where the Cathedral came into view, the big square tower dominates the riverside.

Worcester Cathedral

We have been to Worcester many times, also being married there, so we decided to give it a miss this time, and travel on.

Worcester

We passed the Worcester and Birmingham Canal, and the Droitwich Barge Canal where Simon and Margaret would have turned off, and kept going passing Thomas

Thomas Telford bridge

Telford Holt Fleet Bridge, which dates back to the 1830’s, until we finally
Arrived at Stourport on Severn where we stopped the night.

I wanted to keep going, and get back onto the canals, out of all the places we have been I was not impressed with the
River Severn, I found it rather boring, I did enjoy going through Worcester, but glad we will be back on the canals tomorrow.

Looking over the basin at dusk.

We walked around after dinner, having a look at the triple locks we have todo tomorrow and where the facilities are, we then went for a drink in the Angel pub, and back to the boat for an early night.

Leaving Fladbury Lock, we arrived in Pershore mid morning, moored and strolled into the town. We were quite surprised with what we saw; none of us had any per-conceived notions about Pershore and apart from numerous Georgian style buildings, the olde-worlde high street,

Angel inn on the high street

it had a beautiful and historic abbey with superb grounds, but before exploring we decided to have a coffee and a bun. At a lock earlier that morning, a chap we went through with recommended a visit to Pershore, and also suggested we visited The Angel Inn for coffee, which we did and was very pleased we ignored the usual suspects such as Costa or Cafe Nero etc. Entering this old oak beamed hotel, built in Tudor times using old ship’s timbers was well worth visiting. The high street in Pershore was originally part of the main road between London and Worcester and onwards into Wales and the

Old photo of Angel Inn

Angel being a posting house as well as an inn, meant all coaches carrying mail as well as most others had to stop there. This was a “Motorway” of the middle ages with several monarchs passed by, one of which, Queen Elizabeth 1^st stayed here, no doubt as a guest!! Whilst renovating the place in the 1920’s they discovered a portrait thought to be her dated i 1570.

After being suitably refreshed, we both went our separate ways; Christine and I visited what used to be an Anglo-Saxon Abby but today it is an Anglican parish church, “Church of the Holy Cross”. Looking around this quite stunning building it transpires that there is little evidence chronicled as to when, or what was originally built though there are suggestions the foundations for an abbey go back to around 670’s AD. Today’s main body of the Abby was started in 1100,

The Abbey at Pershore

completed 1130, and through the ages additional bits have been added. The two main, very large, buttresses were added in 1913 to keep the building up. Unlike many Churches and most Abbeys destroyed during the reformation, Pershore was spared as the local residents purchased it as a parish church for their own use.

Walking around this pleasant town we struck upon a launderette, so back to the boat for the sheets etc., and then returned and deposited said washing. Having time to kill we

Carving in the grounds of the Abbey

revisited the Angel as they had a good selection of real ale, naturally I had to try a couple!!!

This evening we had our customary “Cocktails”, but tonight we were entertained on “Doris” Simon and Margaret’s boat. After suitable refreshment we went our separate ways for supper then returned to “Doris” for another game of Phase 10, Christine won, again!!!!!

Saturday morning and Simon and Margaret who aren’t too keen travelling in the heat of the day left Pershore soon after 0700hrs, we don’t have that problem so stayed in bed.   Our arrangement was to hopefully meet up later in Tewkesbury.

We couldn’t hang around too long as the locals were having “Dragon Races” today, and were setting things up so after a flying visit to ASDA (oh dear!) we were off. The river Avon continued winding its way I

Cows trying to keep cool

through the vale of Evesham, passing fields of market gardening on an industrial scale, cattle swishing their tails to clear the flies and taking things easy in the heat.   Today was also Qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix so we had a time constraint and decided to stop at the only pub en-route. When we got to the moorings they were taken and whilst we were deciding our next move we grounded, the river here was so shallow we struggled to get off. Eventually we were away and said goodbye to the pub we didn’t visit.   I say they should have longer moorings.

As we sailed into Tewkesbury, under King John’s bridge, we spotted “Doris” on the moorings and as there was no other space we moored alongside. We quickly switched the “telly” on and caught the most important part of qualifying, what a relief!!!

Tonight will be our last evening together, so Simon and Margaret joined us for “cocktails” where we put the world to rights before going separate ways for supper. We then got back together again for one final game of Phase 10 that Margaret was determined to win; and she did.  We then said our goodbyes as they were aiming to leave early.   Next Morning we noted them go by as we enjoyed tea in bed!!

Tewksbury Abbey

After breakfast we headed off to visit Tewksbury Abbey but being Sunday had to wait for the morning service to end. We eventually found a window of opportunity between two services to do our tour of this spectacular building started in 1102 but completed in 1121.  This abbey church, like Pershore, was sold to local parishioners for £453.00 after the dissolution of the monasteries. The grounds surrounding the abbey were simple but had some very nice sculptured Yew trees.   The abbey is also famous for its beautiful medieval stained glass window.

Stained windows in the Abbey

The last time I was in this abbey was around the mid 50’s; it was here that I was confirmed.

Leaving the abbey we noticed the Police had closed the road off and after enquiring was told there was a military parade in the town and it was under way right now in the High Street. We hurried along to try and catch the tail end of it, unfortunately as we turned into the High Street all we heard were the dying throws of the marching band; we had arrived too late. Never mind, a quick visit to Tesco and then we headed back to the boat, it was after all the Austrian Grand Prix.

Our day was completed with Poldark before retiring; we’re off tomorrow, up the River Severn as far as we can go before heading back into the canal system.

Stratford was very busy, with a Boat festival and Music festival, and having been here before, we decided after going into Town, that we would move on, it was so busy, Geoff went to get the license (£50 for seven days) to go on the River Avon. Margaret and Simon also decided to move on, so Margaret and I walked to the lock, to open the gates.

Scenes on the Avon

When we finished the lock, opened the gates, there were about fifty

Some of the swans

swans as a welcoming party, we walked to get on the boats, when we were told we could not get on boats there, and we would have to walk over the bridge and the boys had to meet us the other side of the River, ridiculous a two minute job took about ten minutes, so much for making the boats welcome!

One of the locks

The River Avon is lovely, I prefer it to the Thames, we stopped at the first lock, which was huge, we think you could get three narrowboats in some of them, we helped a guy through, who we thought was on his own, as he seemed to be doing everything, when we suddenly spotted a lady just sitting holding one of the ropes, we were not impressed with that, so we let him get ahead of us.
We moored up just before the lock, Margaret let her lovely Bengal Cat

Claud relaxing in the sun

out, he is gorgeous, his name is Claud, even Geoff has taken a shine to him, Claud is fitted with a GPS collar, so they can track where he is, he seems to go hunting at night, but is always back in the morning.
We had our normal six o clock, cocktails, with Simon and Margaret, sitting on the bench by the lock, then stopped for supper, and later we played Phase 10, another lovely day. There were some students

Claud on look out duties

having a drink, and a swim in the River, which we worried about, but they were very good, and left at a sensible time, so we all got our beauty sleep.

We headed for Bidford-on-Avon, where we both stopped for lunch, another lovely mooring, in the middle of the town, the

Early morning start

weather has been amazing, we walked to the boat yard, to see if they do fuel, which they didn’t, then went for a lovely lunch, wondered around the town, walked up to the church, then walked back to the boats, normal

Church at Bidford-on-Avon

cocktails this time in the park, and later played Phase 10. I have won twice and Simon once, come on Geoff and Margaret, your turn next!
We filled up with water, before we left in the morning, this time heading for Evesham, where we stopped for fuel, as we were both getting low, had some lunch

The houses and the gardens along the river are stunning.

in the centre, but decided that we would not stop as the place has a bad reputation so we moved onto Fladbury Lock and stopped the night, enjoying cocktails and another game of Phase 10.