Narrowboat Adventures before Dementia
NB Fantasma

The first of April and we are on our first new canal of the year, it’s still the Shropshire Union Canal but the Middlewich Branch. We have passed the southwestern end three times but have never ventured along it. 

We were not, at least for the first mile or so, impressed. There was a line of moored vessels on both sides of the canal that seemed never-ending and it was not until we were approaching Cholmondeston Lock that were we able to find a mooring.

From Cholmondeston the canal was much more attractive and our next mooring had fabulous views which included Top Flash a lake-like body of water caused by salt mining subsidence.

All towns that end in “wich” for example Middlewich, Nantwich, Northwich are towns where salt was mined and the mining has over the years caused ground subsidence that has filled with water to form lakes or flashes.

4th April. We moved on again today through the shortest canal on the network the Wardle Canal just 154 feet (47 m) long. The canal, in Middlewich, Cheshire, connects the Trent and Mersey Canal to the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union Canal, terminating with a single lock known as Wardle Lock. It was built in 1829 so that the navigation authority of the Trent and Mersey Canal could maintain control over the junction. (source - Wikipedia). It can be a bit chaotic as the lock landing on the eastern side of the lock is around the corner on the Trent and Mersey Canal where a sharp turn into the Wardle Canal makes boat handling erm!! shall we say . . . interesting and a small bridge makes for even more interest.

There are three locks in Middlewich the twists and turns needed when moving between them are as awkward as any we’ve been to so we were very happy to find volunteer look-keepers at each of them with expertise and advice to make things so much easier. Just beyond the third lock, we filled with water and moored.

Middlewich was a pleasant town with Tesco, Morrison and Lidl supermarkets as well as a range of independent shops including a first-rate butcher. We spent a very pleasant couple of days exploring Middlewich and hope to visit again sometime in the future.

From Middlewich we moved just a mile and a half to some very popular moorings known as Bramble Cutting. It is a small mooring area, with enough space for three boats on the offside or non-towpath side of the canal and it has a wide grassed area with picnic tables and BBQ’s and is accessible only from the canal so totally secure. When we arrived there was one space left but we decided to not grab it and moored instead opposite on the towpath side, the reason was the thick overhanging foliage that prevented any ray of sunshine from falling on the solar panels. Where we were moored the panels lapped up the sunshine preventing the need to charge the batteries with the engine for the couple of days we were there. As we left the area a lady on a boat coming the other way asked if there was space on the Bramble Cutting moorings, I said there was certainly one, perhaps two available. Blimey she said I’ve tried to moor there every time I’ve passed over the last twelve years and never found a vacant mooring.

7th April. We moved a whole three miles today and moored close to a pub called The Old Broken Cross, which was not of course the reason we stopped, no! We stopped for the Co-Op store a little way up the road.😁😊😁

We had heard that the food was very good at the pub and had a little nose around as we went to the Co-Op. There were lots of signs declaring it a “Sports Bar” and every room we looked in had a monster-sized TV set so we ate on board Fantasma. We learned later that the restaurant was the only room in the place that did not boast a television set - oh well, perhaps if we pass that way again.

After just one night near the pub, we moved on again but stopped after just one and a half miles a little past the village of Wincham close to Thor Specialities (UK) Ltd a chemical manufacturer specialising in biocides, disinfectants, fire retardants and what their web site describes as “personal care products”. There were many somewhat unnerving signs along the canal saying that  “If Alarm Sounds Leave Area immediately” so if the alarm sounded we would presumably rush away at a breakneck of 2 or 3 miles an hour.

We will never know what we would have done should the alarm have sounded, we moored opposite the works for a week and all was quiet and peaceful, no other boats moored within a couple of hundred yards from us and the works were closed for Easter.

We didn’t find any local shops but just 1.25km along the towpath was the Lion Salt Works Museum, it was a very interesting place to visit.

There was so much salt mining in the area that subsidence started to be a problem so in 1891 a mine subsidence act was introduced to compensate businesses for subsidence. A special mode of construction was recommended for buildings so they could cope with the effects of mining. The light timber framing of the Middle Ages was reintroduced, and instead of building on conventional foundations, the buildings had jacking points' incorporated into the timber frames. This meant that if the ground sank beneath it, a building could be jacked up to a level position, or even moved on rollers to more stable ground. For example, the Bridge Inn weighed 55 tons and was moved 185ft in 1913.

Today, Northwich and the surrounding area stand on firmer ground. A £32 million stabilisation project saw the injection of more than a million tonnes of grout into four former mines beneath the town centre.

The fuel boat passed by today so we topped up with diesel and bought some bags of coal and a 13kg bottle of gas. The (red) diesel was £1.19 per litre for domestic use.

15th April. After a week of R & R i.e. sitting on our bums doing very little, we moved today to Anderton Nature Park just a few yards from the Cathedral of the Canals aka The Anderton Boat Lift. We had intended to take a ride down the lift and spend a few days on the River Weaver before coming back up the lift and continuing along the Trent and Mersey, however, the lift is operating just once each way per day using just one caisson, the other having broken down and the rumour about the place was that it needs some considerable work to bring it up to a reliable standard and the other caisson may need to be stopped at any moment. We decided to forego the excitement of a cruise on the River Weaver on this occasion in the hope we will be able to return at a future time and so continued along the Trent and Mersey Canal.

We have been travelling very slowly as we have ordered a new door for our fridge from Midland Chandlers at Peston Brook on the Bridgewater Canal and it’s not due until around 24th April. The Bridgewater Canal is owned and run by Peel Holdings Ltd and not by CRT (Canal and River Trust)and as such we do not have unfettered access to the Bridgewater Canal but can access the canal on our CRT licence for 7 days (in any 30 days) if we want longer on the canal we can get short stay licence at around £40 per week which we don’t want to pay so we will go on the Bridgewater Canal at the last minute to save extra fees.

17th April We have moved around a mile and a half to a short but pretty section of the canal, less than 3/4 mile long between Barnton and Saltersford Tunnels there is just one other boat moored nearby, a cruiser that looks very worse for wear. There is a small town a few hundred yards away where we discovered a couple of convenience stores a first-class butcher and a launderette so Thursday we did all the laundry, restocked the food store cupboards from the Co-Op and got a shoulder of lamb from the butcher which, as Sunday dinner was still four days away, was vacuum packed for us.

24th April. We have finally gone on to the Bridgewater Canal today, we phoned Midland Chandlers who confirmed that all the stuff we had ordered was ready for collection. I asked how easy to moor close to them “ . . . we have three moorings for our customers, they are rarely used so you will have no problem . . . “. Of course when we arrived all three were occupied but we were able to moor up under the M56 using the motorway bridge supports to tie up to.

Well, that was an expensive fridge door, the door itself was £114.40, expensive on its own but after the other “essential” purchases were totted up the final bill came to £550.11 - hells teeth!!!

Our first impression of the Bridgewater Canal was very positive, it is wide and very pretty. It was early afternoon when we had finished at Midland Chandlers so decided to go up the Runcorn Arm just 4.5 miles long it is less than a two-hour cruise with moorings close to the heart of Runcorn Town.

There are plans to re-open the section of the arm between Runcorn and the River Weaver enabling a circular cruise from the Anderton Boat Lift along the River Weaver and then back onto the canal system via the Runcorn Arm (or vicky verky of course). This would do a service to Runcorn as it has much to offer including a well-respected theatre. We were told by a couple of anglers fishing behind our mooring that very few boats currently venture up the arm.

Returning towards the Bridgewater Canal main line the following morning we filled with water at the only water point we found on the entire canal which was, for us, the only negative of the Bridgewater Canal. We understand that to get a long term licence for the Bridgewater Canal you have to have a home mooring which presumably you will then have access to all the facilities at that home mooring

The Bridgewater Canal appears very well kept, virtually the entire canal is edged with what appears to be the local stone which, while attractive to the eye, is not easy to moor against as the towpaths are generally wide and constructed using copious quantities of road stone which unless the grass edge is wide makes getting pins hammered in between the edging stone and the roadstone towpaths a nightmare. Each town along the way generally has some visitor mooring where rings are provided although these are obviously very popular and fill up quickly.

26th April. We stopped at a town called Lymm where we arranged to collect our medication. The choice of this town was very fortuitous as it turned out to be a small town with a good range of independent shops as well as a couple of chain stores, the baker was particularly good as it also sold ice cream and a very good range of artisan cheese. As usual, we left the shop with a great selection of super cheeses, crispbreads and some fabulous cakes. Sue’s birthday dinner that night was a selection of superb cheeses, biscuits and a bottle of good wine.

We returned to the shops the next morning partly to visit a fish van that had set up close to the canal where we bought some plaice fillets for that night's dinner and back to the bakers to buy some cheese that the lady owner had recommended but not in until today's delivery from her wholesaler. Like all the others, it was unpasteurised, soft(ish) cheese wrapped in wild garlic leaves. It proved to be delicious.

29th April. We left the Bridgewater Canal today six days after joining it and with a day in hand. It was a very pretty canal kept in good condition by its owners and we would love to travel it again someday in the opposite direction.

The Leeds and Liverpool Canal was as pretty as the Bridgewater and we passed by lots of lakes or flashes as they are known locally and are caused like those we spoke of earlier by mining subsidence but in this case coal mining. Sadly we didn’t take any photos. The photos we did take this month can be accessed HERE

The next obstacle is The Wigan Lock Flight. It is a 21-lock with a fearsome reputation of being the most difficult flight on the entire UK canal system, one chap we were talking to said that the only time he went up it he got to the top and collapsed suffering a heart attack which left him in hospital for some weeks - erm!! On the last day of April, our task was to climb the twenty-one wide locks raising our boat an incredible 214’ - 7”. We had left a post on the Wigan Flight Crew Facebook page asking if any other boats were going up on Sunday morning and able to share the locks but had no one responded - Oh Well!!

We were being joined by niece Lisa who lives near(ish) and weirdly wants to help.

We left the mooring just as the rain started to “persist” down and we started climbing the big flight, as we exited the first lock we saw a “vollylockie”  (volunteer lock keeper) setting the second lock, Sue went to help him and he told us that a chap we had spoken to the previous evening had organised a team of vollylockies to help us through the entire flight. Lisa joined us around a third of the way up and with help from the four fabulous vollylockies we were through the flight in a most respectable five hours, and although we were all very tired, I was in charge of the “steery stick” (tiller) the whole day😀😀😀😀😀, but to wield the hard work handle (winch handle) all day without the help from the fabulous volunteers the day would indeed have been an even more exhausting nightmare for Lisa and Sue than it was, and five hours would have stretched to eight, or ten or even more hours.