High Offley's church (tower on the hillside) was having bell ringing practice last night and the sound of melodious pealing of the bells floated down the hillside. Along with the ocassional sleepy quack of a duck and the plopping of fish it made standing on the back of the boat in the freezing cold (having a fag) a slightly haunting but very pleasant experience.
Just before 11.00am, having given up on waiting for the rain to stop, we loosed the mooring ropes and began our soggy journey
We soon hit the Grub Street Cutting; for over a mile the canal is wrapped in a thick coat of vegetation hiding the sheer size, in parts, of the 80 foot deep cutting,
Some moss encrusted boats moored in the cutting
Beside which was a tumble down old shed and lean to, housing of all things, a very shiny, clean vintage car. And noticed at the last minute were two squirrels on the front deck of the boat (blurry, furry little objects in the pic). The juxtoposition of dilapadated old shed, pristine vintage car and moss streaked boat bewildered the senses.
Horse shoe shaped bridge holes are the go along this cutting
This double arched bridge must the be the most photographed feature on the entire SUC. The tiny telegraph pole is all that remains of the line which once marched beside the Shroppie for much of its length
This pic gives you some indication of its size
I don't know if my memory is faulty, but I remember the trees being much bigger and older along all these cuttings. We have seen evidence in Woodseaves and other cuttings of lots of chainsawing and I wonder if CRT has been removing the bigger and older trees that draped across the canal. Maybe Betty and Geoff can remember.
What ever, it was still beautiful, even grey and dripping wet
As soon as we came out of the cutting we were back on an embankment with long lines of moored boats, which immediately set L to grumbling again as he throttled down.
Here is a quote from our Pearson's Canal Guide:
"Blithely we pleasure boaters sail across embankments and through cuttings with no more thought for their construction than if we were driving down the M6. But imagine the impact of Telford's brash new canal on the surrounding early 19thC landscape. Put yourself in the position of Sir Richard Whitworth's tenant farmer at Batchacre Park. Up until 1830 dawn rose across the open pasturelands throwing light through his east-facing windows. A year later his view of the rising sun was cut off forever by an embankment twice the height of the farmhouse. no wonder the landowners of this rural corner of Staffordshire had their misgivings, and the canal company paid dearly in compensation for the land they acquired."
Old working boat. The living quarters for the boater and his family, often up to several children, was entirely housed in the back 8' long (blue bit on this boat) section of the boat. Everything was in that little space: kitchen, living room (tho I don't think there would have been much time for lounging around), dining, and sleeping oh and storage.
I can't remember if this is still the same line of moored boats or we are onto a new one. CRT is apparently encouraging the construction of new marinas along the canal system, and especially the Shroppie, in an effort to get permanent moorers off the actual canals. But I think the marinas are just filling up with new boats. When we were here with Betty and Geoff in 2014 there were 30,000 registered boats on the system and there are now 36,000. Doesn't sound like much of an increase, but if they were all moored along the canal it would add an extra 68 miles of linear moorings!
Enough bitching, I should let Lawrence do his own - hey Rhonda!
About 11.45 we stopped at Norbury Junction to fill with water .
No longer a junction, the Newport Branch , abandoned in 1944, once wended its way across Shropshire's Weald Moors to Shrewsbury.
After the water fill we headed off again at 12.16 but only got 100 metres down the canal where empty mooring rings sang to us like the Sirens and lured us not to our doom, but to lunch at the Junction Inn
where Betty, Geoff, L and I had our first Sunday lunch.
After much discussion, I wanted to stay put for Sunday Roast and have Tim and Mike join us here, and L wanted to keep moving. With a lull in the rain, we decided to keep going and so we headed away from Norbury Junction
But the lull didn't last for long and soon it was pelting down.
Going along the Shelmore embankment. All the trees disguise the immensity of this embankment. It was 6 years in the making. A veritable army of navvies and horses were employed on its construction. Spoil from the big cuttings nearby, Gnosall and Grub Street were brought by wagon for its construction. The earthworks slipped time after time, and as the rest of the canal was finished, Shelmore stubbornly refused to hold. It wasn't until January 1835 that Shelmore Bank was considered solid enough for that section of the canal to be put in water. The embankment need not have been built at all had Lord Anson of Norbury Park not refused to allow the preferred course through Shelmore Wood.
The rain having eased by the time we got to Gnosall, Lawrence opted to push on for another couple of hours (me mentioning that the Navigation got rave reviews fell on deaf ears)
Hello Gnosall
Goodbye Gnosall
despite good mooring being available.
After Gnosall we headed into Cowley Tunnel - all 81 yards of it
until we came under a bridge near the site of the long gone Lord Talbot's Wharf to find another long line of permanent moorings
A bit of fake grass and the odd gnome can do wonders
A little further on and we came to Rye Hill Cutting
With the rain now finished and the sky less gloomy we got to see a bit of the countryside
Another big farm complex
A bit more permanent mooring decoration
Coming into Wheaton Aston this boat passed us, it was none other than NB Emily, the boat Betty, Geoff, L & I hired for a month back in 2014.
We moored up, firstly north of the bridge in a bit of a cutting, but a quick scout had us moving to south of the bridge, where if there is any sun tomorrow, we should get some.
At 5.30ish we were nice and snug, opposite the pub, getting pscyhed up for the big clean up in the morning ahead of Tim and Mike's arrival.
Couldn't help myself, a drake floating on a reflection of clouds
12 miles, 1 tunnel (tho' after Standedge it hardly counts) ,. 6ish hours
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