A grand day for a bit of windlass waggling..

Well the forecast said that today was going to be fine, and it was. Decidedly chilly first thing, though, down to 8° before the sun came up over the hedgerow.

We were on the move at half-nine, just a couple of minutes to Engine Lock.
Over to the west, near Ford Green, there were several colliery shafts. It’s likely that the name of the lock derived from a pumping or hoist engine house nearby. Gone now, of course. There was also a dry dock at one time, just at the head of the lock.

Following the lock there are two small lift bridges to negotiate, the first with a pleasant surprise…

…push-button operation!
The second took us back to using a windlass though. No access to power there, I would guess.

Between the two the canal crosses a small aqueduct just labelled “4”.
This is the River Trent, still merely a stream, only a couple of miles south of it’s source up on Biddulph Moor.

We pulled in below Stockton Locks for half an hour or so for me to nip up to the Post Office in Stockton Brook for a package that was waiting there. Walking up the locks I spotted a boat coming down, leaving all the locks empty ready for us. Unfortunately, just as I arrived back home, another boat came around the corner and started up the flight. So we had all the locks to turn as we went up, which made for a seemingly slow ascent.

In Lock 5, Stockton Bottom Lock


Above the lock, on the offside, sits a Victorian pumping station.
Built in 1884 for the Staffordshire Potteries Water Board it originally housed 2 steam powered pumps, later replaced by electric pumps. Now redundant, it’s been sold into private hands but is looking a bit dejected, with broken windows and overgrown grounds.

The next lock up has a sculpture alongside, depicting the various industries in the Potteries area.

Tributes to ironworks, collieries, quarrying and of course ceramics are included and also a representation of a Supermarine Spifire. This aircraft, which performed a key role in the latter half of WWII, was designed by local man R J Mitchell, Kidsgrove born and Hanley educated.








The five locks are fairly evenly spaced, the middle one sitting just beyond a pipe bridge and disused railway crossing.

The railway bridge still carries the lines, unusual for a disused line…

We left the top at midday, just an hour after starting up.

Stockton Top Lock, Lock 9

The boat-horse stables alongside are now a private house.

I was thinking, as I waited for the lock to fill, that it’s unlikely that anywhere else on the system, on a sunny mid-August day, you could do a flight of five locks and not meet another boat. It is pretty quiet on here.

A mile or so above the locks there’s a curious island in the middle of the navigation, the swivel of a long removed swing bridge. The bridge carried a rail spur from the North Staffs Railway to the Victoria Flint Mill.

The canal makes a sharp right turn just beyond the the white bridge, straight ahead is the old transhipment wharf now occupied by the Stoke on Trent Boat Club. We pulled in for water at Park Lane services a little further on, then finished the day’s trip at Hazelhurst Junction, where the Leek Branch heads off.

Hazelhurst Junction.

The main line drops down the locks ahead, while the Leek Branch goes off to the right.

We were lucky to drop onto a mooring on the piling just past the junction. Nice and open, with a field of sheep on one side and looking down onto the Hazelhurst Locks on the other.
  

It looks like the weather is returning to wet and windy again tomorrow, but we’ll head off to Leek anyway. No locks or bridges to deal with, so Mags can stay inside if she likes.

Locks 6, miles 4½

A gloomy start but a fine finish

Today has been a day of two parts. Yesterday's rain continued through the night, finally petering out by mid morning. The clouds started to break up by noon, though, and we’ve had a fine sunny afternoon.

We waited for the rain to move off before we followed it, getting away at around half-nine. Just around the corner was our first obstacle, the two-rise staircase locks at Bedford Street.

(No, it’s not your eyes. It IS out of focus!)



Leaving the locks it soon becomes apparent that this canal was surveyed by the redoubtable James Brindley, who’s statue stands near the junction. His technique was to follow the contours of the land as much as possible to avoid having to build costly embankments, aqueducts and locks. With this canal sitting above the Trent valley, that means that the navigation follows a sinuous route to stick to the 430 foot contour.

With the channel being often narrow and overgrown it would make for some interesting encounters if it were any busier. As it was we met maybe half a dozen boats heading in the opposite direction, all at convenient places.

Planet Lock is about half a mile up, then there’s another half hour to Ivy House Lift Bridge.

Planet Lock


The canal twists and turns on it’s way out of town through Hanley passing the fine but rarely used moorings near the park, and new housing developments on the left facing semi-derelict industry on the right.

Hanley Park moorings


A pair of preserved bottle kilns sit incongruously among modern housing units.

Keep your head down under Bridge 9!


The mechanised Ivy House Lift Bridge

We just missed out on a free passage here, a convoy of three boats had just come through.

From here the canal passes out into the countryside, heavily wooded banks rising to the left and falling away down on the right, with glimpses of the flat bottom of the river valley.
  

Bridge 14 is on the apex of a tricky right-hand bend, and has the scars to prove it! 

The Trent and Mersey-style mile posts indicate the distance from Etruria and Uttoxeter.



The navigation terminates at Froghall, 13 miles short of Uttoxeter, the remainder to the town being more properly known as the Uttoxeter Canal but both sections were built by the Trent and Mersey Canal Company, hence the mileposts. At Froghall tramways linked the limestone quarries at Cauldon Low with the canal, and at Hazlehurst a branch was built to Leek, primarily as a feeder to supply water from Rudyard Reservoir.




The canal passes through Milton, with another low and awkward bridge to negotiate, but there’s good moorings on the north side and the village is useful for shopping.

Milton Bridge


Away from Milton and the canal opens up a bit to Engine Lock, and this is where we called it quits for today.


We’ve a good day on the cards for tomorrow, so we’ll head towards Leek I reckon.

Locks 3, miles 5½

Up to Stoke, with a bit of assistance.

We left Barlaston yesterday, after a quiet weekend. A few boats about, but not as many as expected. Maybe the weather’s putting a few folk off. You’d hardly think it was August, would you. Daytime temperatures rarely get above 18°, the nights are often quite a bit cooler. And I don’t want to mention the rain…
Still, we at least chose a dry day for the run up Stoke Locks.

We got away at around a quarter to ten, past the Wedgwood factory and up to Trentham Lock.



There had been two or three boats heading off before we were ready, so we expected the lock to be full, but it was actually nearly empty. Good timing as well as we’d arrived just before a boat heading down so we could leave the lock ready for them.
Then followed the steady run into Stoke. The canal runs past Trentham, generally in a tree-lined cutting so you only get to see the housing estates on the north side of the village.

Not really graffiti, actually a project by the local Scout Group about helping hands, I think.

The exhaust stack at the recycling centre’s incinerator is having a bit of work…

…I bet it’s good views from up there!


From here the canal is still leafy for another mile or so, but the city makes it’s presence known in the form of the busy A500 just beyond the screen of trees.
North of Bridge 113, a wider section of the navigation marks the site of the junction with the long defunct Newcastle Under Lyme Canal.

Somewhere near that moored boat…

The canal ran about 3 miles to a terminus to the south of Newcastle Under Lyme’s centre. It was a bit of an ill-fated venture, never returning the shareholders much in the way of dividends due to constraints placed on the type of cargos that could be carried. In 1776, four years before the NUL Canal had been completed, Sir Nigel Gresley opened a short private canal from collieries on his estates into the town. The Enabling Act included a proviso that restricted the price of coal supplied via the canal, but also effectively created a monopoly, preventing the Newcastle Under Lyme from carrying coal. They were restricted to far less lucrative cargos of limestone and farm produce.
The NUL Canal fell out of use by 1935 and was abandoned. Most of the route has subsequently been filled and lost, up until the early 1970s a short stub at the junction was in use by the Stoke Boat Club, but this also fell to the developer’s axe when the A500 was built.

Back on the T&M, and a short straight section of canal leads up to Stoke Bottom Lock, the ugly concrete monstrosity that replaced the original during bypass scheme. I tied up and headed up onto the lockside to find a boat on the way down and Rob the Lock assisting. Rob, and now his son Liam, is available to help boats up and down the Stoke Locks, and further afield as well. If you need his services just give him a call – 07999426005. Anyway, he didn’t have anyone scheduled to take back up so he agreed to do us. Mags could have a sit down and with me closing up and Rob cycling ahead we made short work of the first three.


The wheels came off a little at Etruria. We caught up with the preceding boats here, the one directly ahead being the ex-GUCC motor Lancing.
Built in 1936 by Yarwood’s in Northwich, she was commissioned into the Grand Union Canal Carrying Co’s fleet until the 1960’s then became a passenger boat on the Kennet and Avon before being restored to her original condition.

He was waiting for a boat coming down Etruria Lock, the summit lock, so we had a bit of a pause. But we finally left the flight at around half-twelve.

Coming up Johnson’s  Lock, the last but one on the flight.

We were heading onto the Caldon Canal, a sharp right turn above the last lock, but first had a call to make so carried on towards Festival Basin. We pulled in just before Bridge 117 for a gas bottle…
You can’t really read the sign, but it says that 13Kg propane will cost just £21. That’s several £s cheaper than marina prices. Well worth the short diversion.

We turned around in the basin and headed back to the junction, passing a nervous-looking family about to embark on their first narrowboat holiday on a 60’ Black Prince hire boat. I hope the weather improves a bit…

Back to Etruria Junction.




Filling up with water at the services.

Topped and de-rubbished we pulled along a bit and moored just past the museum.

Even if we’re passing through we try to moor here, below Bedford Street Locks. It’s a lot quieter than on the moorings above the top lock on the main line. But this time we won’t be turning around, instead we’re going on and up the Caldon.
But not today. The forecast was for rain most of the day, and so it has transpired. We stayed put, apart from a brief foray up to B&Q for me.

On the way again tomorrow.

Locks 6, miles 5½

Up through Stone to Barlaston

On Tuesday, after spending an extended weekend below Star Lock, we moved up through Stone, stopping to fill the water tank before heading up the locks. We would have moved on Monday but the weather was a bit grim, heavy showers blowing through on a fresh wind.

Up through Star Lock


We paused for an hour for shopping, luckily dropping onto a free mooring alongside the carpark, before carrying on to moor on the north side of town.

Past Joules’ Brewery warehouse above Yard Lock

We met boats coming down Yard, Newcastle Road and Limekiln Locks, making it an easy trip up.

A rare shot from the tiller of the entrance to Newcastle Road Lock under the busy road

A floating pontoon below the railway bridge is moved out of our way by the inspection team.
I reckon they’ll have spent more time shuffling the pontoons about than working this morning!

We took another day off yesterday for me to do some work in the washroom, anyway it was raining most of the day so not good for cruising. Today’s forecast was for sunshine and showers but at least it was dry when we set off up the four Meaford Locks. It didn’t stay that way for long, though.

Meaford Locks


The third lock up, number 33, is still very slow to fill with partially blocked paddle culverts.
In fact it takes as long to ascend this one as it does to do the other three combined! And the heavens opened of course while we were there.

The three boats queueing for the top lock didn’t know what they should be looking forward to…
Above the locks the towpath, having switched to the right partway up the flight, swaps back to the left at Bridge 100, Turnover Bridge.


The oblique crossing of the canal by a disused rail spur from the main line marks the site of the now-demolished Meaford Power Station(s).

Meaford A went online in 1948 and ceased production in 1974. Meanwhile Meaford B had opened on the same site, formally opening in October 1957. Both plants were coal powered using fuel delivered by rail and water for the boilers drawn from the River Trent. In fact this was probably the furthest upstream power plant to utilise the river. There’s a lot more further downstream. Below Nottingham the wide, flat river valley is punctuated by regular generating plants. In fact you can use them as landmarks when navigating the river. Meaford B was closed and demolished in the 1990s, but now there’s a proposal to build a new gas-turbine facility on the site, planned to produce arond 300MW of electricity.

We pulled in just past the Plume of Feathers in Barlaston. We’ll probably stay here till after the weekend now. The weather might have improved by then…

You may remember that last spring I replaced our cassette loo with a composting loo. Absolutely no regrets on that score. But we have had a problem. The underfloor tank I installed to catch the pee from the diverter has to be pumped out into a container for disposal and I’d reckoned without the limescale that settles out of the liquid. Clearing the filters was not a pleasant job so I’ve gone back to the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)principal I should have applied in the first place. The underfloor installation is now a thing of the past, with tank, pipes and pump removed and discarded. Now the pee runs through a short pipe through the side of the loo and into a 5 litre container sited alongside.
This container is easily removed for disposal of the contents. Low tech but far less troublesome.

Another job I‘ve got to do is construct another top box for the fenders. The existing one is growing mushrooms!

Locks 8, miles 3¾