Friday July 20th - Marple to Bugsworth Basins

We had set the alarm early so as to get a good start in order to get to our destination for the day – Bugsworth Basins – fairly early as we knew it was a popular place for the local weekending boaters to travel to for the weekend.

With monotonous regularity and a total lack of surprise it was ………. Raining.

In fact it was pouring. Again.

Mind you it did tease us by easing off and stopping – so we set off. No sooner than we did, it started to rain again. Heavily.

We reversed back through Bridge 2, past the moored boats opposite the trip boat & sanitary station and into the junction area where we turned and headed off towards New Mills & Bugsworth. By now it was really raining stair-rods again and our formerly waterproof wet weather gear proved that it was only good in so much water as, by now, we were getting wet on the inside as well.

Turnover & roving bridge at Marple Junction

The junction area is lovely with an old warehouse, the top lock, the wharfinger's house, a delightful turnover roving bridge of the Macclesfield Canal design - a symphony of sinuous snakelike stonework - making something of a purely utilitarian purpose into a structure of beauty.

Macclesfield Canal Warehouse, Marple

Former wharfinger's house, Marple Junction

The journey to Bugsworth is normally a delight with wonderful views of the Peak District (the Derbyshire bit of the Pennines) opening up ahead and to the east across the Goyt Valley. Trees hug the banks. Former farmworkers’ and millworkers’ cottages pop up from time to time, now tastefully converted into highly desirable and no doubt very expensive residences with manicured lawns and landscaped grounds.

I would like to be able to say we enjoyed these scenic delights, but with the hills having vanished completely beneath a grey, wet mist and the trees dripping cold rainwater down our necks it was anything but enjoyable.

A succession of moveable bridges punctuate this 6 mile length – 2 lift bridges and 2 swing bridges, both lift bridges and the first swing bridge coming relatively close together. Elaine elected to walk between these three bridges and took windlass, BW key and handcuff key with her and so covered all the possible opening mechanisms.

The sweet fatory at New Mills

After the last of these three, awkwardly situated on a bend with three permanently moored boats on the off side, comes the industrial outpost of New Mills, a textile and engineering outpost in the foothills of the Peaks. It’s most notable claim to fame is the wonderful Swizzles-Matlow sweet factory.

Remember those far off days of your youth when you were allowed to buy a few pennies worth (old pennies, that is) of lovely sweets that would probably end up covered in fluff at the bottom of you r pockets? Chances are they were made here. It is a place where enticing aromas waft out at you from the ventilators. The strongest was of sherbet lemons! Yumm!

By now the rain had at last eased off, and the grey mist finally started to disperse, and the hills began to re-emerge from the covering.

After the last swing bridge and a long linear mooring at Furness Vale Marina, the outskirts of Whaley Bridge come into view. The A6 comes alongside with the railway (there is another line running parallel on the other side of the valley) and, after the Whaley Bridge by-pass roars overhead, the canal forks. Straight on is the terminal basin at Whaley Bridge, notable for its transhipment warehouse where narrowboats entered at one end and railway engines pushed railway trucks in the other being one end of the amazing Cromford & High Peak Railway.

Turning to the left at the junction takes the canal over the Rover Goyt and into the wonderful historic transhipment port that is Bugsworth Basins. After over 30 years of hard work by members of the Inland Waterways Protection Society, and with later help from British Waterways and other professional organisations (who helped cure the perennial leakage problem), the basins and arms were brought back to life. 

The basins are set around the remains of the intricate network of tramroads that had brought limestone from the vast quarries high above in the hills at Dove Holes to the canal either for transportation as it was, or for use in the lime kilns that sprang up alongside the basins. Stone was also brought down for crushing, all of the finished products being shipped out by canal.

It is a remarkable survival and is now a popular mooring destination for boaters, aided no doubt by the wonderful Navigation Inn, alongside the basins, once owned by Pat Phoenix (aka Elsie Tanner) of Coronation Street fame.

We have got permission to stay here three nights – it is usually only 48 hours, but it was worth getting here early as later on in the day, the weekenders started to arrive.

Mooring in the Upper Basin at Bugsworth, with
Jo & Keith Lodge on 'Hadar' just behind

We are moored at the far end of the complex, in the Upper Basin, just in front of our friends Jo & Keith on ‘Hadar’ with whom we enjoyed a lively lunch in the Navigation.

There will be a family get-together on Sunday as Kathryn, Bob & Freddie and Emma & Ellie are coming over for the day. Another excuse for another meal in the Navigation!

The forecast now says that the Jetstream that has caused so much wet weather over the last couple of months is now moving away to the north, and that fine, sunny and hot weather is to take its place. If that’s true, it’s about time!