Again - 3 days for the price of one. We had a very poor internet signal on Friday & Saturday at Stone and none at all yesterday at Barlaston. Thank heaven's for Westport Lakes and the Potteries!

Monday May 6th

What a perfect day! Bright sunshine from the start and it’s lovely & warm! The weather obviously isn’t aware that it’s Bank Holiday Monday!

Wedgwood Factory

Under way at 7.20 we were soon past the moored boats on the Wedgwood Factory moorings and heading for the first lock of the day. This is Trentham Lock, situated on the outskirts of the Potteries suburb of the same name.

Trentham Lock

Because of the antics of the “little darlings” an anti-vandal device has been fitted to the top ground paddle only in an effort to deter their predilection for raising the paddle and wasting water. However, the top paddle is out of action completely anyway. As this is a very deep lock – just an inch shy of 12’ – it took a long, long time to fill.

The rather dreary suburb of Hem Heath follows. If there is an old, historic core to the place, the canal doesn’t find it. To while away the monotony of suburbia one is forced to compare the efforts of the local population in back garden attractiveness terms.

It is amusing to see the effect of the BBC’s Ground Force team. Clearly some householders were sufficiently enthused at the time of the programme’s heyday, but after, what, 12 years or so, some of the timber decking is looking decidedly ‘tired’.

Once free of suburbia, a short period of that scrubby, horse paddock pastureland follows of the sort that you find clinging to the fringes of most built up areas. The railway line closes in again on one side and then, on the other, the attempts of Mother Nature to reclaim the dereliction man has left after the closure and demolition of the buildings of Sideway Colliery are evident in the scrubby wasteland. Part of this area is slowly being colonized by large identikit warehouse style buildings so common these days. Two brick built cottages dating from the early part of the C20th stand sandwiched between the canal and railway looking rather incongruous in their present surroundings. Were they railway cottages, canal cottages or something to with the colliery –perhaps something to with colliery to railway interchange sidings?

The towering stands of the Britannia Stadium (home to Stoke City FC) rise up on one side with the council’s waste incineration plant with its tall chimney on the other. The waste plant is a mirror image of the one adjacent to the Wolverhampton 21 – both built alongside canals, but disdaining any connection and no hope of using water transport over King Road.

A major road junction and bridge starts a mile or so length featuring alternately brick and concrete canyons in which the canal is forced by modern road improvements and old industry. Readers of this log will be aware I infinitely prefer the latter.

The old industry includes the dereliction of the former site of Kerr Stuarts, the major engineering firm where Tom Rolt was an apprentice until bankruptcy caused their closure, and the former North Staffordshire Railway workshops – now home to a variety of small businesses. A wagon works, or at least somewhere where wagon wheels are produced still hints at the area’s former railway influence and, surprisingly, it was working on a Bank Holiday.

Diversification in the Potteries

A boatyard where we have never seen a soul and which is full of old fibreglass cruisers with no current licenses has an interesting sideline in activities offering line dancing, country & western, air rifles, archery& tacle (yes it is spelt that way) and bait amongst its boat engine services.



Stoke Bottom Lock

Crossing over the River Trent – now considerably smaller in size even than when we first met it at Great Haywood – a long brick canyon takes us to Stoke Bottom Lock. When major road “improvements” were carried out in the 1960’s, the bottom two locks of the Stoke flight had to be combined in one new concrete lined and deep lock. Subsequent road “improvements” carried out a few years ago negated that need with a revised road system. So the powers that be could have left things alone if they’d thought about doing the C21st improvement first.

Former lock house

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new lock house built with the new lock still stands alongside but now in private ownership.

As we approached the second lock – Cockshutt’s Lock (named after the adjacent railway sidings) – we saw the bottom gates

Cockshutt's Lock

opening. Ah –there must be a boat coming out. But there was no boat in the lock. What was going on?

We had met up with Robert, known locally as Rob the Lock. He is a youngish chap who, whilst not being an official C&RT volunteer lockie, acts as one with their tacit approval. He did the training last year but was unhappy with the placement C&RT came up with for him – Newcastle Road Lock at Stone.

Old factory at Twyford Lock

He prefers to be mobile and act as a lock-wheeler, using his bike to get from lock to lock. He kindly helped us up the rest of the flight. He told me that he just loves helping people through the locks and doesn’t mind how far he has to go. He has twice helped single handed boaters from Stone to Middlewich and vice versa (being offered a bed for the night half way along) and he has also helped boats up as far as Stockton Brook on the Caldon.

We said farewell to him at the top lock where he jumped on his bike and pedalled down to meet up with a boat that we had just exchanged places with.

Not far to go now to our usual mooring in the Potteries. First though we traversed the mixture of old and new (mainly old) with the Festival Park developments and new industrial units interspersed with remains of old brick walls, the still derelict remains of the Shelton Steel Works before entering what for me is one of the most redolent areas anywhere in the country that brings a real sense of the activity that must have gone here for years before closure, abandonment and dereliction set in.

The area from the erstwhile Burslem Arm through Middleport and Longport is one of despair and hope. Despair that so many old industrial buildings are just quietly mouldering away, and hope in that some factories are still working, one in the process of being rejuvenated.

Dereliction at Middleport

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Former Anderton Canal Company's loading bay

Middleport Pottery

The latter is Middleport Pottery. Here the entire complex was bought by the Prince of Wale’s Charitable Trust with a view to restoring the buildings to provide an educational facility and tourist attraction as well as keeping the pottery going and setting up premises for other small craft businesses to make their home. There is plenty of restoration work going on.

Restored warehouse at Longport Wharf

At Longport Wharf, the old canal warehouse that suffered major fire damage a few years ago is now fully restored.

 

 

 

 

 

Dereliction at Longport x1

 

 

Dereliction at Longport x2

And then, through another short section of closed pottery works complete with bottle kiln, we went through a bridge and in front of us stretched the long line of moorings that adjoin the popular Potteries green area – Westport Lakes. Here we tied up to gather our wits for the passage through the infamous Harecastle Tunnel and strength for the start of Heartbreak Hill tomorrow.

 

Mooring at Westport Lakes

Sunday May 5th

We enjoyed our stay in Stone as we usually do. It is a pleasant town which goes out of its way to welcome its canal visitors. The Farmers’ Market was excellent and we picked up some lovely locally produced cheese, crusty bread, big field mushrooms and all sorts of other goodies. The meal last night was excellent. We have now had lovely meals in Stone on three different occasions – Thai, Tapas and now Italian.

Star Lock at Stone

We thought we had excelled ourselves this morning untying at 7.15, but another Challenger boat had gone by just a couple of minutes before. So it was a case of waiting at the bottom lock (Star Lock) whilst ‘Verity’ went up in front of us. Apart from the two boats there was hardly anything else moving at all. The crew on ‘Verity’ helped us at the second lock (Yard Lock) by raising a bottom paddle.

We pulled in for a few minutes at the sanitary station below Newcastle Road Lock to empty the loo and get rid of the rubbish before continuing up to the last of the four Stone locks, Lime Kiln Lock. Past Roger Fuller’s boatbuilding yard are more moorings and here we passed Andrew & Pauline on ‘Griffin’ who we had shared locks (and the tidal passage) on the lower Grand union and Thames a few years back. They had passed us yesterday and slowed down for a quick chat.

At the foot of Meaford Locks we could see ‘Verity’ climbing up the second lock, but by the time we got to the third of the four lock flight, we were right behind them and returned the favour by closing the top gate for them on this and the top lock.

Above the top lock the canal runs through the first mundane landscape since leaving Wolverhampton. Although wooded, the landscape is healing itself after coal extraction and a former power station finally bit the dust. The site of the power station is still blighted by demolition rubbish and an electricity sub-station, but matters improve as the canal enters Barlaston. Here we passed ‘Verity’ – they had evidently got off for a paper or supplies – just as Elaine did. I carried on to our usual mooring spot just before the official visitor moorings for the Wedgwood Factory.

Mooring at Barlaston

It seemed strange tying up at just before 10.30 in the morning, but we had done our usual three hours and to go onto the next possible mooring spot – either at Etruria Junction, or as we prefer at Westport Lakes – would have meant a long day. We’ll leave that for tomorrow!

 

Friday May 3rd

After a wonderfully quiet night at Tixall Wide, we set off for the morning’s cruise to Stone. We seem to have dropped seamlessly into having the alarm clock set for earlier than we have done before in previous cruises (except for special circumstances) and getting good early starts –before 7.30. To some boaters I am sure this is quite late by comparison with their routine, but it’s fine for us. We get a good start without too many boats around – indeed some days we travel for an hour or more without seeing another boat on the move.

It is only a mile or so from the Wide to the junction at Great Haywood and the northern terminus of the Staffs & Worcs Canal as it makes a T-junction with the Trent & Mersey Canal here.

Most of that mile is a procession of moored boats on both sides followed by twin aqueducts. The first is over the River Trent, whose valley we now follow, at least as far as Stoke. The second is now over nothing in particular but was presumably over an earlier mill stream. The remnants of the mill complex have been subsumed into and are surrounded by modern industrial units and one entrance under the aqueduct is now part of a concrete yard and driveway.

Immediately following is the end on moorings of the Anglo Welsh hire base with one of their longer boats moored rather inconsiderately close to the exit from the second aqueduct calling for some fairly tight and accurate steering.

A long blast on the horn probably woke up every boater on the visitor moorings who was still in bed (most of them) and a burst of throttle and with the tiller hard over we swung round to the right and headed for Stone.

Again progress is slow as most of the next mile has off side linear moorings. Most of these are from the relatively new marina, but also from the small mooring basin and linear moorings at Hoo Mill Lock – our first of the day.

It was here that a boat that had left Tixall shortly after us came up as we ascended the lock. It was one of the former Challenger share boats ‘Invincible’ which, as we later ascertained, was making its way back to Aston Marina, just before Stone.

From Hoo Mill to Stone is another of those understated, typically English landscapes as the canal parallels the Trent with low ridges of hills marking the valley edges on both sides. It is an open landscape with, apart from the river banks, few trees. It is also a stop-start sort of progress with moored boats dotted all the way to Stone. It is rightly a popular section, with large marinas at either end. The main Derby-Stoke road, the A51, and the main railway line shadow the canal to the north and east, occasionally dipping their toes into the canal world by running down nearer the canal in places, but it is essentially peaceful and tranquil.

A private boat pulled out behind us soon after Hoo Mill so we now had two boats trailing us. At Weston Lock another former Challenger boat was tied up - ‘Victorious’ – but we were able to ascend without having to wait. As the private boat pulled into the lock landing for the next locking, ‘Victorious’ pulled up behind us meaning that‘Invincible’ was now fourth in a queue.

As we entered the outskirts of Weston upon Trent came one of those moments that seem to happen quite frequently in the canal world and act as a reminder that Sod’s Law is alive and well in the C21st – namely that if you are going to have to pass a boat it will happen in the most awkward location possible.

Sure enough as we approached the moored boats outside Weston Wharf we met a boat heading for Great Haywood. Nothing too sinister in that you might think, but at the point where we would pass the boats were three abreast on the wharf and a curve in the canal’s course occurred immediately after.

Fortunately we all seemed to know what we were doing (or it was just blind good fortune) and we managed to pass without clouting anything, going aground or any of the other highly unpleasant and embarrassing options that could have happened.



Ornamental bridge

Canal, railway and road are squeezed into a narrow channel as the village of Salt is passed to the south west, and Sandon Hall & park on a ridge to the north east. An ornamental bridge, insisted onby the local landowners at Sandon Hall, takes a minor road over the canal before we reach Sandon Lock. Here we all started to stack up. Two boats were in front of us and by the time they had moved through, we were the first of four boats waiting our turn. It seemed quite alien for us as this was the first time on this cruise that we have had to queue and wait at a lock.

Waiting at Sandon Lock

Eventually we were through and on our way through more of the same landscape, although we do pass salt meadows – now a nature reserve which, with the earlier village of Salt, give a clue to the former industry that prospered in this area since Roman times.

Although we had lost one of the boats in front of us into Aston Marina, another had exited from the marina’s exit channel (they have both in and out channels) in front of us. This meant another further delay at Aston Lock, but we were in no hurry – our destination was only a couple of miles or so in front of us and after Aston Lock we had no more to work today.

Aston Lock

A boat descending warned us about the pound above Aston Lock which, they said, was about 8” down. And sure enough, once through the lock, we struggled to make any speed over the final mile and a half to our intended mooring place.

We had to keep to the centre of the channel as the sides were both well exposed and mud and rocks, normally buried under a few feet of water, were now exposed. Indeed we thought we wouldn’t be able to get into the side at Stone at all.

When we reached the long length of moorings it wasn’t the depth we were initially worried about – just that there didn’t appear to be any spaces left for us to use. Fortunately, there were about two boat lengths left before the winding hole and we made for the side. Well, the bow made it to the bank, but the stern ended up about a foot out. Nevertheless, we have tied up in worse places and before too long we were closing the boat up and heading for Morrison’s for a refill of the store cupboard.

We found out from the boater moored up behind us that there had been a problem at Aston Lock overnight with neither set of gates, top nor bottom, being able to be closed properly with the result they leaked all night semi-draining the pound up to Stone. Early in the morning it was 18” down and moored boats had a decided list. Someone had already been in touch with C&RT and additional water was being let down with the result that it was now only about 6-8”. By the time we got back from the shop it was much better and by the evening it was back to normal.

We had found out that the Stone Farmers’ Market is held on the first Saturday of the month in the main pedestrianised street, and we wanted to visit this. So we decided to make our stay in the likeable town of Stone a two night affair, and also celebrate nothing in particular by having a meal in the lockside Italian Restaurant.