Museum Mooching

We were less than an hour away from Ellesmere Port last night, so arrived there before 11:00 this morning.

The M53 travelled with us most of the way…
Ellesmere Port Boat Museum

I took Meg for a walk along the Ship Canal for a bit, went and fetched a paper from the handy Shell Shop, then went in to have a look around. Mags wasn’t interested, so stayed on board with Meg.

Around the Museum.

Top Basin, we’re moored in the middle distance just before the road bridge.
Whitby Locks drop down to the Ship Canal. 1 broad, 1 narrow.

Lots of marvellous machinery in the Power Hall.
Awaiting Attention
Star of the show…. Jo and Rose Skinner’s horse boat “Friendship”
No 12 Porters Row. Modern living in 1950
I spent an enjoyable 2 or 3 hours, just having a good mooch through the exhibits. I could have happily spent longer, but we’d decided not to stop here overnight, so we moved south again at around 15:30. The museum is well worth a visit, and the location, looking out over the Manchester Ship Canal and River Mersey, is outstanding.

We went a bit closer to Chester than our stopping point on Friday night, pulling over near Bridge 134 at around 17:00.

Contrasts – Stanlow Refinery on the left, Delamere Forest in the distance on the right.

It’s a very quiet stretch of canal, this. We’ve only seen a couple of boats moving the last two days. It'll get busier next week though. There's a boat gathering at the museum over the Easter weekend.

Locks 0, miles 6¾

Through Chester

A longer cruise today took us through Chester, and almost to Ellesmere Port.
We were away at 09:30, to Christleton Lock, just 10 minutes away. It was a pretty gloomy morning, much like yesterday, but brightened up later.

Approaching Christleton Lock

There’s 5 locks on the way in to the city, and all were in our favour. Makes a change! At Chemical Lock we had to wait for a few minutes while a gaggle of work boats came up, but that was the only delay all morning.

Blue Boar workboats at Chemical Lock
Hoole Lane Lock and Watertower
Hello

The navigation does a right bend as it hits the city wall, and it is from here that Charles I was supposed to have watched defeat at The Battle of Rowton Moor (see yesterday’s post).

Charles I Tower
Running along Northgate, through a rock cutting the 3-rise staircase is reached.

Rocky bits at Northgate
The staircase, being of broad dimensions, looks daunting, but is in fact pretty tedious to pass. With only one ground paddle at each chamber, it seems to take an age to even out the water from one level to the other.

Northgate Staircase Locks.
Then it was a sharp right turn above The Dee, passing the 2 locks down to the river and a rather abandoned looking boatyard.

Sad looking boatyard
It’s that time of year again…
From here the countryside is only a mile away, then another 90 minutes saw us within sight of the chimneys and towers of the refineries at Stanlow and Queensrferry. We pulled over for the night about 2 miles from Ellesmere Port, and will cruise the last hour to the museum tomorrow.
Depending on what it’s like, we’ll either stay there overnight, or come back out into the “green stuff”

From the canal, Chester was a bit disappointing. Yes you can see the walls, but that’s about the only thing that makes it different from any other city we’ve been through. We’ll probably stop for a look around on the way back.

Locks 8, miles 8½

A tale of two castles…

Took Meg for a walk to Beeston Castle first thing this morning. The intention was to climb to the top of the sandstone bluff and have a look at the view. But the only access is via the gatehouse, and that wasn’t open till 10:00.

Beeston Castle Gatehouse
So I had the same problem as quite a few previous would be visitors, only most of those had less benign intentions!

So we walked across the fields towards Peckforton Castle instead.

The footpaths around here are excellent, well marked and with good stiles.
One farmer has even gone to the trouble of blazing the route of a track across his field.

It doesn’t seem to have impressed Meg, though.
Both of the castles are built on sandstone bluffs rising around 300 feet above the plain.
But while Beeston Castle is a genuine 12th century fortification, and the evidence suggests that the site was occupied as early as the Bronze Age, Peckforton Castle is a newcomer, built between 1844 and 1850 by a wealthy Cheshire landowner, John Tollemarche, who also owned Beeston. But it’s design is Norman, with portcullis, moat and arrow slits for windows.
And while Beeston is now a ruin, Peckforton has been converted to a luxury hotel.

Unlike a lot of historic castles, Beeston does not seen to have attracted much action till the First Civil War, when it was repaired and fortified by Parliamentarian troops under Sir William Brereton. It was taken by the Royalists in December 1643 when Captain Thomas Sandford and 8 of his men carried out a commando-style raid, forcing the then castle governor, Captain Thomas Steele, to surrender. Steele was later shot in Nantwich for his error of judgement.

Parliamentary forces laid siege to the castle from November 1644 to November 1645, when the garrison surrendered through lack of food. The castle was partially demolished to prevent it’s further strategic use.

It’s now owned by English Heritage, and is a Grade 1 listed building.

Towards the end of the siege the last decisive battle of the war was taking place only a few miles to the west. The Battle of Rowton Moor on 24th September was won by Parliamentary troops, killing or capturing over 2000 royalists. King Charles I is reputed to have watched the battle from Chester city walls, although this is unlikely as the battlefield was over 3 miles away. What is clear is that he left for Denbigh Castle the following day, after realising the extent of his defeat. This led to his execution in January 1649, and for the next 11 years England was a Commonwealth, without a monarch for the first time in its history.

Anyway, enough history. We had a fairly short day today, stopping before Chester at the village of Christleton. The canal remains attractive, cutting through the Cheshire countryside.

We were escorted for a while by 4 young swans. They were making more wash than we were!

Tattenhall Marina entrance being finished.

There’s been a few boats around again today. This morning was overcast and quite cool, but it brightened up later, giving us long spells of sunshine.

Moored at Christleton
Locks 1, miles 7½

Another sunny day takes us onto uncharted waters…

The good weather continues, though I thought earlier that we wouldn’t be. At the end of last week, while out with Meg, I spotted several pallets of bags of grout and a compressor waiting alongside the Hurleston light of locks. We had a walk down this morning, first thing, to see contractors working on lock 2. Apparently, during the recent stoppage, several voids had been identified behind the lock wall. If left unfilled, these would have led to collapse of the chamber. So they were injecting liquid grout into the gaps.
But they’d started early, and were near to finishing when I had a chat to the BW chap in charge. He told me that we would be OK to go down the flight at 10:00. That’s a relief, I thought for a bit that our restarted trip had been stopped almost immediately!

Finishing off repairs at Hurleston (not Mags, the chap behind!)
So we were away at 09:50, and down the flight by about 10:30. Meeting 2 boats coming up meant that the locks were with us, so we made good time.

At the bottom of the flight

Then it was a gentle chug along to Barbridge Junction, and onto water we’d not cruised before.
(The missing bit of the sign is "Wolverha")




Barbridge Junction from a direction I’ve not photographed before.
The first couple of miles run alongside the busy Chester Road, but then it moved off north, and we had a quieter cruise to Bunbury Locks.
These are a 2 rise staircase, and are broad gauge, as are all the locks up to Ellesmere Port.
2 boats were waiting to come up, so we were able to do the “Bunbury Shuffle”, with all 3 boats in the 2 chambers.

Half way through the “Bunbury Shuffle”. We're going down, 'tother two are coming up.

The next 3 locks were in our favour, with boats coming up. Beeston Iron Lock is unusual, in that it’s built from – you’ve guessed it – iron! Wrought iron plates in fact. The ground that it is built in is so unstable that a conventional structure would crack, so they used this ingenious solution. Although even this has now distorted, and BW advise careful solo passage only.

Beeston Iron Lock
The rocky outcrop which supports Beeston Castle had been visible odd times through the trees, but as we approached Wharton Lock it appeared clearly on the left side. We decided to pull over here, with the castle in the windows on one side, and open fields on the other.


I imagine it’s a popular spot in the season. There were 2 boats here when we arrived.

This fine weather is supposed to hang around till the weekend. As far as I’m concerned, it can hang around till October!

Greygal had told us we’d enjoy this short excursion, and she’s not wrong so far.
There’s been a few boats moving today, mainly private but with a couple of hire boats thrown in. I had a lockside chat with one crew who’d hired out of Chirk on Saturday, gone up to have a look at Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, then turned around, down to Hurleston and on to Ellesmere Port. They were heading back to Chirk, having left the Boat Museum early this morning. Quite a trip in a week – 132 miles and 76 locks!

Locks 9, miles 8

On the move again…. In shorts!

That’s it, we’re on the move again with a definite objective in mind. But first we had the minor matter of a half-marathon to attend to.

After a week of pretty grim wet and windy weather, Sunday dawned fine, dry and still. We were off as the birds woke up and threw their duvets off, and arrived at Albert Dock in Liverpool in plenty of time for me to have a walk around before the race.

Albert Dock, with the Liver building in the distance and the new Museum of Liverpool nearer to the left.

The view across the Mersey from the start line….
And the start/finish line itself.
The “Mizuno” inflatable arch developed a leak later. It rather spoiled the drama of finishing, running under the sagging tube with a guy manfully holding it up for us…

The course this year was a vast improvement on the previous route. The last 3 miles or so were along the Otterspool Promenade, Atlantic Way and Kings Parade, right alongside the river. I’m glad the wind and rain had cleared off, it would have been a pretty bleak last 25 minutes otherwise! As it was it was really enjoyable. I didn’t make the time I wanted, though it was another PB, by all of 17 seconds! Can’t blame the course, more the fact that my training was a little patchy over the last 3 weeks. Still at 1:40:10 I was quite pleased, and the results show that I was 31st in my age group. (Don’t know how many were in the group though. Maybe only 32?) And 748th overall. That’s out of around 3500.

During the race Mags was fascinated by the amphibious tour buses taking visitors around the docks.
Oddly the new moorings for narrowboats at the end of the new link in Salthouse Dock were completely empty. I was under the impression that there was a waiting list for boats to travel down from the end of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal….. Maybe the opening ceremony in the news last week was not for the general public?

That’s where we’ll be this time next year.

We left Liverpool and headed up to North Yorkshire to spend the night with Mags son and daughter in law. I was tempted by an offer of a walk up Ingleborough again, but was feeling a bit stiff. So Meg and I had a gentle amble around Storrs Common, an area of high ground above Ingleton.

The River Doe with Twisleton Scar End behind.

Panorama looking north.
Mags had a doctors appointment for a check up in the morning (all’s well as expected) and then we had a quick visit with friends Val and John before hitting the road back to Cheshire and the boat.

After taking the car (we had a Honda Civic this time; a bit quirky but an enjoyable drive) back this morning to Enterprise at Crewe we filled and emptied tanks as required before bidding our farewells to Swanley Bridge Marina. Our stays over the last 3 weekends have been good, the people here are pleasant and helpful. But we wouldn’t want to be in any marina for any length of time. Boats are made for cruising, after all.

Leaving the marinaWe didn’t go so far, just 20 minutes to the SUCS mooring near Bridge 3. We’ll have a good day tomorrow, heading north for our postponed visit to Ellesmere Port and the Boat Museum.

Hope the weather stays good, I’ve broken out my shorts for the first time this year (not including the running bit, of course) and I don’t like to have to put them away again…

Locks 0, miles 1

PS
I'm sure, like me, there's a lot of blog readers out there missing their fix from Sue and Vic's No Problem. She's set up a temporary blog for the time being, here. I've changed the address in my link list, too.

Taking root……

Or at least it seems that way.
We’ve been in this immediate area for the last 3 weeks, and it feels like an age. There’s nothing wrong with around here, and Swanley Marina is pleasant enough, but the hairy one and I have just about exhausted all the walking opportunities in the vicinity.

We came back into the marina yesterday, after spending 3 days on the bank. This should be the last visit; tomorrow we’re off up to Liverpool to see if my last 10 week’s training has been worthwhile, then up to North Yorks again for the night. Mags has got a review at the Doc’s on Monday, after which we head back down here, and move back onto the canal on Tuesday morning.

We’ll spend a few days going up to Ellesmere Port and the Boat Museum, before starting the long run south to Oxford, and my next race in May.

The brokerage here is having an open day today. Not very favourable weather though, windy with sharp showers blowing through.

Windswept BBQ
We had a long walk this morning, across the fields to Acton and the Shroppie, then back up to Hurleston and along the Llangollen back to the marina. I hadn’t realised, but a decisive battle during the English Civil War occurred just to the north of Nantwich, around the Acton, Henhull area.

In 1644, the Royalists held much of Cheshire, apart from Nantwich (then known as Namptwiche), which was a Parliamentarian stronghold, and had been under siege by Lord Byron’s troops for several weeks.
In January, a powerful force under Sir Thomas Fairfax arrived to relieve the garrison. He’d marched his 1800 men across the Pennines in bitter weather to link up with the Cheshire and Lancashire regiments at Manchester. Then, reinforced with a further 3000 troops he marched south. His intention was to reinforce the town, but the weather turned in his favour, heavy rain swelling the River Weaver and splitting the Royalist force, isolating the infantry. Fairfax moved against them and forced a surrender at Acton before the cavalry had a chance to link up. Byron retreated in disarray to Chester.
Byron’s infantry was lost, Fairfax capturing 1500 officers and men and the baggage train and artillery. Casualties were heavy on the Royalist side, far less so for the Parliamentarians.
Acton Church still bears damage from musket balls fired during the battle.
The Shropshire Union runs right through the middle of the battlefield.
Lots more information here…

Locks 2, miles 1

Another change of plan

Well, Pete’s funeral went off as well as can be expected. There were a lot of people there, the chapel was full. So he got a good send off. But he would have been a little impatient with all the fuss.
Once again, thank you all for the messages of sympathy and support we’ve received over the last week or so.

We came south afterwards, staying the night with Mag’s son, George, and Christine at Ingleton. I needed a bit of a blow-out, so called a friend in the village and we had a romp up Ingleborough first thing on Saturday. We all enjoyed it, and it cleared my head and got things into some sort of perspective again.

Ingleborough Hill
Johnny on the way up…
We'd climbed up through the mist into a beautiful day...

And on the top
Me and Meg at the trig point

By mid afternoon we were back at the marina, and stayed there till today. We were intending to move out yesterday, but the strong wind made manouvering in a busy marina a definite no-no.

Wind driven waves in the marina
We pulled out this morning, and turned right (uphill), up the 2 Swanley locks and moored just past the winding hole near bridge 10. This is where we spent a couple of nights last week.

Swanley No 1 Lock
Sarah (aka Greygal) and Andy on their aptly named boat Greyhound (read the blog if you haven't already to see why it's apt) are just behind us having left the marina for a few days last Saturday.

NB Greyhound looking spick and span after a day's worth of elbow grease.
We’ve changed our plans yet again. We intended to be up at Ellesmere Port Boat Museum this coming weekend, so we could hire another car to go to Liverpool for my first ½ marathon of the year. But we’ve decided to hang on here instead, and will pop back into Swanley Bridge Marina for the weekend. It’ll put an extra 40 minutes on the journey Sunday morning, but we can live with that.

I took Meg for a good walk around to the north of the canal this afternoon. There’s a fine network of footpaths across the fields around here. But the local farmer is making life difficult for those who want to walk them.

Bull, cows and calves. We just got out of the field before they got to the stile.
I’m not usually bothered by farm animals, but I found those horns quite intimidating!

Electrified fence across a stile.

I touched it to check whether it was live or not. But unfortunately, not thinking, I was holding onto Meg to keep her away as I did, so we both got a jolt. It’s only low voltage so I felt not much more than a tingle, but Meg’s a lot smaller than me, and she didn’t half yelp. I lifted her over the fence and gave her a good fuss, and she was back to her normal self in no time.
I can understand the farmers wanting to protect their livestock, but aren’t there other ways?

Val and all our regulars - normal postings will be resuming asap....

Locks 2, miles 1