Wednesday 2^nd October 2019

The day dawned clear and dry, but cold. The recent rain seems to have heralded in the winter. Last year the stove was not lit until 15th October. This year it would have been lit before now if it weren’t for allowing the paint on the flue plate to cure.

We left the mooring at 8:30 for the first day of proper cruising in over a month. It felt good to be on the move but a little sad to see Fradley Junction disappearing behind us. We have enjoyed our times here and probably won’t return now, for a few years.

We passed through Wood End Lock and Kings Bromley Marina with its still disused and derelict looking wharf and wharf house. Such a shame. In the open countryside before Handsacre, the sun came out, warming the day although it was still quite cold.

At Armitage, the iconic Armitage Shanks factory building curves around the bend in the canal. We started to get the first views over the River Trent flood plain, a great mass of water with all the recent rain. There had been numerous reports on canal related Facebook groups, of flooding around the country. Not the time to be caught on a river for sure.

At the western end of Armitage is the so-called ‘Armitage Tunnel’. There used to be a tunnel here but the roof was removed in 1971 to combat subsidence caused by mining. Today it is a very narrow section of canal with the steep tunnel sides still in place. We met with Gordon from Streethay Wharf who was out on his boat on a weeks holiday.

Armitage Tunnel

We stopped in Rugeley at bridge 66, for a visit to the big Tesco’s situated next to the canal. I stayed with the boat while Brenda went shopping. There was a group of eight young men in their 20’s on the bridge, obviously up to no good, noisy and shouting and dropping their food bags and pop cans when they were finished with them. A group of youngsters on a bridge will always make a boater nervous, so many times you hear stories of things being thrown onto the roof.

This crowd eventually rocked a big section of the bridge parapet brickwork off and threw it into the canal. The Police arrived and moved them on, but I became a bit concerned that I took the blame for calling them as I had been watching and we were the nearest boat to the bridge. As soon as Brenda returned we moved off.

The canal leaves Rugeley on an embankment looking over the flood plain and this view gave us the best opportunity to fully appreciate the extent of the flooding. The whole plain was under water.

The canal crosses the river on the Brindley Aqueduct, an impressive structure, and it was from the aqueduct that the speed of the river could be seen.

Flow of River Trent and Flooding from Brindley Aqueduct

The Brindley Aqueduct crosses the Trent on four low arches, turning at right angles from the line of the contour canal, instead of a skewed structure which would align better. At the time the aqueduct was built, skewed arches had not been perfected, so Brindley opted for his tried and tested approach. This feat of engineering was achieved by first building half the structure on dry land and then excavating a channel to divert the river under the new structure. This enabled the other half to be built on dry land and when complete, the river was let go so that it could flow along both its natural and man-made channels. This technique had the advantage of increasing the size of the channel to provide capacity for floodwater.

For his time, with no former experiences to follow, Brindley really was a genius.

The canal follows the river all the way to Great Haywood where we moored in countryside before the lock, looking across the fields to Shugborough Hall. At times, the waters of the river were just the other side of the towpath hedge. A lot of water.

This section of the canal is particularly attractive along with the pretty Colwich Lock and its cottage, always muddy around the lock though.

Once moored, we walked up to the ancient Essex Bridge, a packhorse bridge linking the hall with the village. We were last here in July 2018 when the grandkids were swimming in the river. There would be none of that today. The river was high, running fast and fiercely, and the sandbanks had disappeared.

Weather: cold but dry.

Day Total: 2 locks; 12 miles; 0 Tunnels; 0 Swing Bridges; 0 Lift Bridges; 0 Boat Lift; Day’s running hours 5.1

Overall Total: 728 locks; 1300 miles; 50 tunnels; 61 Swing Bridges; 11 Lift Bridges; 2 Boat Lifts; total engine running hours 812.8hrs