Wednesday 16th
October 2019
Before leaving the mooring, I dumped rubbish and then explored around
the Bolton Copper Work Site. As borne out by the amount of concrete foundations
of buildings demolished in 2011, this site is, or was, absolutely colossal.
Until its closure in 2014, it had employed, along with a sister plant in nearby
Oakmoor, over 2,000 people at its peak, although this number had fallen to just
105 at the time of closure. The employees mainly came from Stoke-on-Trent, Leek
and Uttoxeter and were brought in by bus and train. It is wondered, as with all
locations that had, and have, lost their staple employment, where do all these
people work today?
Site of former Bolton’s Copper Works at Froghall andsomeof the Military
Spares now stored there
The works were started in the mid-19th century and produced
all forms of copper-ware from cables, pipes and sheeting and had produced cable
for the first Atlantic Telegraph Cable in 1858. There were furnaces, rolling mills
and wire-drawing mills within the works. The works were the Staffordshire Moorlands
last link to the historic copper-mining industry centred at the Ecton Copper Mines
in the nearby Manifold Valley. Ecton
Deep Mine was the deepest mine in Britain and over 100,000 tons of copper ore
was extracted until closure in the 1890’s.
Closure of Bolton’s came about amidst controversy. An explosion
shut-down 2 of the 3 remaining furnaces, the loss of a leading customer brought
about a 70% loss in trade and there was found to be a £10m deficit in the Pension
Fund.
We might well have stayed at Froghall for a day or so, but we just did
not take to the place. Hard to put a finger on it, we felt perfectly safe but
the place had an almost unwelcome feel to it.
Narrow, but delightfully pretty, Upper Caldon Canal
Unusually shaped Cherryeye Bridge 53
Unusually named ‘London Bridge’ at
Consall
Retracing our steps, took us back to Consall and the same mooring by
the Black Lion. I started to grout the stove mosaic tiles, only to have the end
plated dislodge from the spindle and the spindle to puncture the tube of
Sikaflex, rendering it useless. This silicone gun has been bought since we
moved onto the boat. Just shit. Nothing lasts these days.
After a short walk we were back in the pub again chatting with the
same group of old boys. While there, another boat moored behind us, the first
boat we had seen moving for over a week.
All day we had been hearing and seeing the tank engine ‘Hotspur’
running between Cheddleton and Froghall. While in the pub, the train went past
several times, apparently on driver’s experience days. We managed to photograph
it a number of times with one shot of Bridge Street, the pub and the train
passing.
Tank Engine ‘Hotspur’
We arranged to return to the pub for our dinner and went back to the
boat for showers. Dinner was a huge mixed grill between us. Very nice. We met
with the guy who, along with the landlord, had taken part in Channel 5’s
Celebrity Barging series. We had stayed out a lot longer than normal, when we
returned the stove had almost gone out and the boat was very cold.
Weather: a lovely day.
Day Total: 1 lock; 2 miles; 0 Tunnel; 0 Swing Bridges; 0 Lift Bridges;
0 Boat Lift; Day’s running hours 1.7
Overall Total: 765 locks; 1342 miles; 52 tunnels; 61 Swing Bridges; 14
Lift Bridges; 2 Boat Lifts; total engine running hours 845.0hrs
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