Wednesday 15^th August 2018

We haven’t moved today but have explored Stone. It is a delightful little place with some lovely architecture on its high street. We have always enjoyed architecture, trying to work out the age of a building and wondering what stories it has to tell. It is always best, to fully appreciate a particular building, to look up, as the ground level fascia of a building will have been changed so many times, but not so much the levels above.

Most of the buildings in the high street seem to be Georgian.

     

There must also be a very strong Catholic community here that is completely out of perspective for the size of the place. There is a big Catholic Church, a Catholic Nursing Home, a Nunnery and Catholic Primary and High schools. All of which, as an ex-Catholic, or as ex-Catholic as you can get, gave me the creeps.

We called into the Swan Inn as it looked like a really good, typical local. And so it turned out to be. It was so unlike us, to call into a pub at lunchtime and have a pint, but it was a lovely pint in a pub with a really nice feel to it. The Star, which is the place to visit in Stone, certainly from the canal’s perspective, was tacky by comparison.

                           The Swan Inn, Stone

On the way back, we called into a supermarket for shopping and into the chandlery again. Our hull sides have been painted with Hempel’s 2 pack blackening from the base of the hull to the top rubbing strake and with a Satin Black from top rubbing strake to gunwhale. We like to keep on top of the blackening as it is inevitable that these areas are damaged. But the 2 pack makes it very difficult to touch up damaged areas. Firstly, it has to be mixed properly, then applied quite quickly before it starts to go off, then all the brushes and rollers have to be disposed of because they go hard and cannot be reused.  What we wanted was a paint that could be applied on top of the blackening and satin black, was compatible, easy to apply and readily available. They have suggested Rylands PU100 Matt Black Finish. So we have bought a 1ltr tin and will see how we get on with it. Certainly, the hull sides need some TLC. They have been neglected and that is certainly not like us. Even when we had our shared ownership boat, I used to blacken the sides every time we had her out.

We have been treated to a night-time display of solar lighting from a permanent mooring opposite us. There are lights and lighted paper balloons hanging from trees, fences, tables and chairs all of which are very pretty and really quite spectacular. We enjoyed them immensely. I have tried, unsuccessfully, to photograph the display. 

The Bridgewater Canal is generally regarded as the first canal of the modern era. It was the result of the land agent of the Duke of Bridgewater, John Gilbert, having taken a holiday in Europe and reporting back to the Duke on the success of canals in France. The Duke of Bridgewater owned coal mines in Worsley outside Manchester. He then had built what became known as the Bridgewater Canal to, initially, link his mines with Manchester. The Bridgewater Canal was completed in 1761. This proved to be so profitable that other likeminded people also wanted canals constructed to further the prospects for their businesses.

Josiah Wedgewood was one of these people. Prior to the canal age, goods like Wedgewood’s pottery were transported by packhorse. This was expensive, labour extensive and resulted in many breakages over the poor roads of the day.

James Brindley was born in the Derbyshire Pennines of a poor, working background but had later in life formed such a high reputation as a Millwright and early engineer that the Duke of Bridgewater commissioned Brindley to design and construct engineering feats such as the aqueduct of the Bridgewater Canal over the River Irwell.

This came to Wedgewood’s attention and he, in turn, duly commissioned Brindley to construct a canal linking Wedgewood’s factory in Etruria, Staffordshire to the Rivers Mersey and Trent with what was known as the “Grand Trunk” Canal but is now known as the Trent and Mersey.    

Brindley had a vision to connect the four major rivers of Britain, the Mersey, Trent/Humber, Severn and Thames by canal in what was known as the “Grand Cross”. The Trent and Mersey would be built with canal spurs coming off it to connect with the Rivers Severn and Thames through the Staffordshire & Worcestershire, Coventry and Oxford Canals. These canals would then form the main trunk routes to which other, local canals could connect.

The first sod of the building of the Trent and Mersey Canal was cut by Josiah Wedgewood at Stone in 1766 and was carried away in a barrow by Brindley. Such is the claim to fame of Stone.

The Trent and Mersey Canal was completed by 1770. However, the construction of the 2880 yard Harecastle Tunnel just north of Stoke-on-Trent took a further 11 years to complete before the link was finished.  

The expense, technical difficulties and engineering techniques of the day, in the construction of Harecastle Tunnel, led to the gauge of 7ft x 72ft being adopted for the canal system, deterring Brindley from building the canal to a gauge that carried the wider flats trading on the Mersey and its linked rivers and having a lasting and limiting effect on the whole canal system.

It is notable then, that our boat can traverse the whole narrow boat canal system.