We had a great evening yesterday at The Mill Restaurant with a superb tapas meal. Well worth visiting again when next we come this way.There was torrential rain this morning when we got out of bed, but fortunately by the time we set off for the locks it had eased off to a persistent drizzle.
What is it about Stone? We love the town, but every time, we arrive in sunshine and depart up the locks in rain. The photos were taken one year when the sun shone once (briefly).To our amazement, the locks were all empty and waiting for us. As a result we had a great run up, and apart from a short stop below the already open gates of Newcastle Road Lock to empty the loo at the sanitary station, we were soon exiting the top lock of the four and passing Roger Fuller’s boatyard with his collection of boats – including ‘Ilford’ and ‘Ibex’, which we had last seen at Great Haywood. ‘Tewkesbury’ was also tied up there.
The good run up Stone Locks came to an abrupt end not all that far ahead as a single handed boater pulled out to enter the bottom lock of the Meaford flight. In the event he didn’t hold us up at all, and we were soon emptying the lock to enter.
A couple of BW guys were working at the bottom two locks checking paddle gear and gates and doing some maintenance work on the lock-sides. We got chatting and they said that whilst the rain was welcome, the canal reservoirs in this neck of the woods were full to the brim and British Waterways were having to run water off to go to waste.
Our friends back on the rain starved Grand Union (as well as the Oxford & Leicester summits) would be glad of a bit more!
Cameron and his cronies seem hell bent on spending an obscene amount of money pushing through the proposals for the new High Speed rail link between London and Birmingham. Trouble is, nobody wants it except a few fat cats who will be able to get to Birmingham about 15 minutes quicker than they can now.
Why can’t the money be spent in creating a water grid to move surplus water from the perennially rain-drenched north and west to the drought ravaged south-east? It would cost a fraction of HS2 and everyone would benefit. But I suppose it doesn’t benefit the fat cats sufficiently, and they probably ignore trifling things like hosepipe bans!
Rant over.
Once at the top of the 4 Meaford Locks, the canal enters a strange section. Initially woods appear on both sides (as well as the railway), but those on the west recede to reveal a post-industrial landscape of demolition rubble and electricity pylons that was once Meaford Power Station. It is a landscape that after many years nature is still having a job to recolonise.
After a while, a chain link fence bars entry to the site, assuming anyone would be foolish enough to try. The fence adds a faintly sinister edge to the surroundings. A guard watchtower wouldn’t be out of place here as an image of a Soviet Gulag somehow springs to mind.
Fortunately, it comes to an end when a bridge crosses the canal carrying a former branch from the mainline railway into the power station complex flanked by a modern electricity sub-station that positively throbs as you go by.
Barlaston announces itself by a charming house with a short mooring arm that once, long ago in the mists of time, was a boatyard. A line of whitewashed terraced cottages flanks the canal. Were they built for the boatyard workers?
Elaine got off at Barlaston Bridge to nip to the adjacent shop for a paper, and once through the bridge we are back surrounded by fields – at least for a while.
We called it a (damp) day at the moorings for the Wedgewood Factory and Visitor Centre. We had intended to stay here another day and go to the Visitor Centre (we have been before, several years ago), but have decided to press on to Stoke on Trent tomorrow in readiness for our train trip to Sheffield on Saturday.
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