Monthly Archive: June 2021
“We thought you’d gone for good!” said a mooring neighbour at Victoria Pit the day after Cleddau had returned from her Round Britain Round the North West / North Midlands travels… Well, the boat had been gone for 42 nights… (Map 1 is the northern area covered, map 2 the southern area covered. Red arrows indicate outbound route from Vic Pit; blue arrows the inbound route from Stourport-on-Severn). On Sunday evening about a dozen boats were moored at...
Sometimes, however early you start, you are not ‘the early bird that gets the worm…’ There were lots of other boats moored between Barlaston and Wedgwood on Thursday evening, the majority with bows pointing northwards, towards Stoke-on-Trent. As the Captain untied the ropes at 0810 on Friday morning to head the quarter of a mile or so to Trentham Lock a big boat chuffed by. Cleddau cruised under Bridge 104 at Wedgwood – and all three of the boats that...
While moored at Tixall Wide for a couple of days there were some customary things to be done… A stroll through Great Haywood for instance. There are usually some decorative features in this well-cared for village. The Clifford Arms pub draws attention to its beer garden with crocheted strands suspended from the garden railings, while further up the street the wicker baskets of two bicycles clamped to the walls of a cottage are bright with summer bloom. It was...
These final downhill miles of the Staffs and Worcs Canal have been completed in two hops, first from Penkridge to Stafford and then from Stafford to Tixall Wide, from where it is a 20 minute stroll beside a last watery mile to Great Haywood Junction. It was still half term week and there were many hire boats about. With the sunshine the holiday mode had set in; at Penkridge Lock two crew members (mother and teenage daughter) worked their locking...
From Cleddau’s mooring near Wightwick Bridge (western outskirts of Wolverhampton) it was but a five-minute walk to the National Trust site of Wightwick Manor. Two of the Cheshire Three had driven south to meet for a picnic lunch, a visit to the Manor and a stroll around the gardens. The Manor is a very short walk from the car park. Exactly when had this been built – and had it at some time been extended? Was it Proper Tudor...
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