Short cruise to Norbury Junction

According to the forecast we’re due some rain this afternoon, so we planned just a short day, leaving late and finishing early. Come to think of it, how’s that different from most days?
Anyway, we got going at around 10:45, chugging on tick-over as the washing machine did it’s business past the linear moorings between Shebdon Wharf and Anchor Bridge.

Shebdon Wharf

Moorings near High Offley

St. Mary’s, High Offley, has a great view of the surrounding countryside.
Parts of the church date from around 1200, later bits are Victorian.
The “worm” you can see on the sky is not fluff on the camera lens as I thought; it’s a scratch. How that got there is anyone’s guess!

Approaching Grub Street Cutting there’s a feeder coming in to the canal from the north east. On the map as Lonco Brook, it crosses the level control weir in a miniature cast iron aqueduct before dropping into the canal.

Canal feeder



On an overcast winter’s day the woods on the approaches to the cutting as appear to me to be somehow primordial, brooding. As if there are hidden eyes peering out from behind mossy trunks….

It’s all chaos and confusion, ivy-clad tree limbs leaning haphazardly.
Maybe I’ve been reading too much Stephen King…

The cutting itself is not as deep or sheer as the more northerly Woodseaves, but has the second “High Bridge” across it’s deepest section. Not much imagination, these canal engineers…

Although lower than that in Woodseaves, this is the one that sports a stumpy telegraph pole in the arch…

Out of the cutting there’s a short straight to the busy Norbury Junction, boatyard, chandlery, café, pub. We moored here, just short of the bridge. I made a trip to the workshop to speak to Simon, with a view to getting the materials for a little project I’ve got in mind.
Watch this space, as they say.

Locks 0, miles 3½