Monday 28^th October 2019

Harvey, bless him, has been all out of sorts with the clocks changing. He doesn’t understand that he is getting up at 6am and not 7, or that his dinner comes an hour later. But, having said that, he is a pain in the backside until he readjusts.

It was a freezing cold morning, a heavy fog and all the bank and grass white with frost. I was outside Wilko’s in Hanley by 8am, waiting for them to open. With all the things in the paint locker being soaked after the rain on Friday, I had decided to buy more plastic storage containers the same as those that store stuff above the rear lockers, which are a perfect fit inside the lockers. Wilko’s didn’t stock the type I wanted, neither did a couple of other pound shops but eventually, I found the same boxes in Tesco’s and was well pleased. As usual when we are out, we never miss the opportunity of filling our bags, and so I returned with numerous groceries.

Stoke-on-Trent was formed in 1910 by the federation of six towns: Stoke, Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, Longton and Fenton. Formerly a primarily industrial conurbation, it is now a centre for service industries and distribution centres, in common with most other former industrial towns. All towns and cities have good areas and bad, but Stoke-on-Trent does not seem to have any nice ones, certainly not any seen from the canals. The walk from the canal to Hanley could well have been Islamabad with English terraced housing, rubbish everywhere and every sixth house advertising HMO rooms to let.

After saying our goodbyes to Nickie and Annie, and stopping at the service point, we were on our way, immediately passing from the Caldon Canal to the Trent and Mersey. It is now all downhill to Middlewich. We passed a lot more sites of industrial neglect and dereliction, in the midst of which still exist some functioning industry, before reaching Westport Lake, an ever popular Stoke recreation area. Here we passed the Oatcake Boat, a Stoke delicacy, but there were no empty moorings to stop and buy some. Sorry Kay.

Soon after Westport there are a few long straight stretches and then the southern portal of Harecastle Tunnel appears. CRT are holding a ‘Scarecastle Tunnel’ event over Halloween and there was fake cobwebs, slime and skeletons all around the place.   

Southern Portal of Harecastle Tunnel, decked out for the ‘Scarecastle’ Tunnel Event

After waiting for the approaching boats already in the tunnel, to emerge, we started our passage. There were three boats waiting to go through, and we were the first. As always, the tunnel was wet with dripping water and very cold. The present Harecastle Tunnel was opened in 1827 and was built by dropping five vertical shafts and digging outwards from each until all excavations met. The result is a tunnel of different profiles and, despite being able to see one side from the other, there are a few kinks on the way through where the excavations did not quite meet. At 1½ miles long, the passage takes about 45 minutes and the steering takes quite a bit of concentration.

Emerging at the northern end, we quickly came to Hardings Wood Junction with the Maccesfield Canal and the start of the so-called ‘Heartbreak Hill’ flight of locks, otherwise known as the Cheshire locks. Why this flight of locks is known as Heartbreak Hill can only be guessed at. Certainly, there are steeper lock flights around the country, consisting of more locks. However, while the Cheshire Locks consist of just 26 locks, they are spread over 7 miles, so the end can be said never to be in sight, in contrast with most other lock flights, where the end can be seen from the start.

We passed through six locks before deciding to moor up at Church Lawton having crossed from Staffordshire into Cheshire. There are 48 counties in England and Staffordshire ranks 18^th in area at 1.048 square miles, so is not particularly large. But we have been in the county since 27^th August, albeit with 3 weeks in Streethay Wharf having the roof repainted.

We had always wanted to moor at this spot, but never before had the opportunity. There are open fields on one side and Church Lawton Church and Lawton Hall on the other. Numerous times we had driven past and always wanted to visit the hill-top church partly hidden in the trees.

All day, we had been treated to amazing cloud formations across the whole, wide sky. As the sun went down again, there were amazing formations strewn across the sky, although the skies were mainly clear, leading to it quickly turning bitter cold. By 8:30 the roof had become a sheet of ice with the ropes frozen solid.   

Weather: very cold and foggy in the morning, giving way to a lovely sunny autumnal day. 

Day Total: 6 locks; 8 miles; 1 Tunnel; 0 Swing Bridges; 0 Lift Bridges; 0 Boat Lift; Day’s running hours 6.2   (including running for hot water and battery charging)

Overall Total: 786 locks; 1363 miles; 53 tunnels; 61 Swing Bridges; 17 Lift Bridges; 2 Boat Lifts; total engine running hours 865.1hrs