Thursday August 2nd, Great Haywood - Fradley Junction

A day of two halves. One, serene, peaceful and quiet, the other typified by a constant stream of boats coming toward us (meeting them usually on blind bends or in narrow sections) and absolute chaos at the last three locks of the day.

Shugborough Hall across the meadows

It all started so well. Blue sky, sunshine, the delights of the Trent Valley meandering along below the wooded heights of Cannock Chase; what more could you ask for?

Haywood and Colwich Locks were worked without seeing any boats at all. This was unusual as we normally get stuck in queues here. It was slow going, however, the world and his wife seemed to have tied up either side of Haywood Lock; we were lucky to get a mooring near the junction yesterday!

Crossing Brindley Bank Aqueduct

The Trent is crossed on Brindley Bank Aqueduct and Rugeley and its suburbs dominate the landscape for the next 5 miles or so. Rugeley is not the most attractive town, although it does provide ample moorings close to the town centre. It has two main claims to fame – or rather notoriety, both of which are commemorated on special British Waterways' signs.

Grave of Christina Collins in Rugeley Cemetery

In June 1839 the raped and battered body of Christina Collins was found in the canal at Brindley Bank Aqueduct. She had been travelling on a narrow boat from Liverpool to join her husband in London. Her body was carried up the steps that lead up from the aqueduct to the nearby road and these are still known as “The Bloody Steps”. Three of the four boatmen were charged with her murder and two were hanged at Stafford Gaol. The story got a rewrite when Colin Dexter wrote the Morse story “The Wench is Dead” around it.

A few years later, in 1855, a Rugeley doctor, William Palmer was found guilty of poisoning an acquaintance and was also suspected of doing the same to his wife and brother (and possibly his children). An Act of Parliament had to be passed to enable the trial to be held at the Old Bailey as it was felt a fair jury could not be found in Staffordshire! Palmer was also publicly hanged at Stafford Gaol in 1856.

After all that, it is almost a relief to leave the place! Having said that we have moored in Rugeley before and shopped there quite often.

Whilst the approach to the town from the north is quite pleasant with long back gardens on one side and the river’s water meadows on the other, the exit to the south is tedious. It runs through a mixture of old and newish housing mixed up with odd bits of old industrial buildings and then runs into a long industrial area built up on the site of the old Brereton Colliery, all overshadowed by the cooling towers and chimney of Rugeley Power Station.

As we finally passed out of Rugeley proper, under a low bridge on a very sharp bend we had to slam the brakes on quickly (go into reverse) as a boat was moving very slowly from the moorings on one side to the water point on the other.

Plum Pudding narrows & tunnel

Then, Elaine got off to walk ahead to Armitage or Plum Pudding Tunnel to check it was clear. It has a long narrow section before the tunnel (itself just a single boat’s width) before the canal curves round at the far end. You can’t see what’s coming, so a crew member disembarking and walking on ahead is really useful. Fortunately I could see one boat already in the tunnel, and Elaine was able to signal that all was clear.

The next mile or so through Armitage is characterised by more narrow sections. This is caused by a belt of hard rock that the canal had to cut through at Plum Pudding Tunnel, and the engineers just did enough to get cut two boats’ width in a few other places.

By now we had started to meet a succession of boats coming towards us and naturally we met them at these narrower sections. Fortunately, we were able to pass them all without undue difficulty.

Plenty of loos at Armitage

The economy may be going through hard times, but the Armitage Shanks works at Armitage seem to be going full belt if the numbers of completed toilets and cisterns stacked up on pallets are anything to go by. You won’t be flushing water down the pan if you invest in this company (if you excuse the pun).

Armitage melds seamlessly into Handsacre and finally you emerge in open countryside again with the last of Rugeley’s satellites behind us. And it gets amazingly remote with just 4 bridges in the next three miles or so to Fradley Junction. Lichfield, Rugeley and Walsall may only be a hop, skip and a jump away, but you could be forgiven for thinking you were miles from anywhere as you journey through the bosky delights of Ravenshaw Wood.

And then, back to earth with a bump as we approached Wood End Lock. A gaggle of boats suddenly appeared in front of us, all waiting for the lock. We hadn’t seen another boat heading our way at all. Now we knew why. They were all here waiting for us! We ended up being fifth in the queue.

Thankfully there was probably an equal number waiting the other side so with one up, one down, we didn’t have to wait too long. Needless to say the blue sky had disappeared and the rain made its first appearance of the day whilst we waited.

One of the boats had warned us that the area around the 5 locks that span either side of Fradley Junction was unmitigated chaos with boats hanging around waiting for their turn to move up or down, boats wanting to turn into or out of the Coventry Canal and one boat broken down in the middle of all this.

Having said that, we were evidently going the right way as we swapped places with boats coming the other way in the first two locks and happily sailed past the boats queuing for the third lock on the far side of the junction as we calmly swung round into the Coventry Canal, and manoeuvred through the swing bridge. We quickly managed to find a straight bit of banking and tied up in time for a later than usual lunch.

Mooring at Fradley