Isn’t it just typical when we have an obligation to travel, the weather is poor. We set off in murky drizzle to do the last half a mile. No wonder the water had turned rusty red with the iron deposits. We always chuckle as we pass under the motorway bridges, this time we were passing underneath the Macclesfield Canal just before the junction. It would have been fun to see a narrowboat above us, but at 7am only the foolhardy were on the move.
Passing under the Macclesfield Canal aqueduct
It was June 2017 that we emerged from the Macclesfield Canal onto the T&M, and I have a feeling it was raining that day as well
The start, or end of the Macclesfield Canal
We carry a spare life jacket so Tim was able to comply with the safety guidelines and as it was raining heavily by now, we didn’t waste much time outside chatting to the CRT crew. We were the third of five to go through on the 8am passage.
Looks like we’ll fit
It’s the second longest tunnel on the network, 2657m long (1.6miles) traffic is one way, and although it is always manned, it doesn’t usually need to be booked in advance, but they want to avoid the potential log jam of boaters awaiting their turn. They let several boats through in a convoy, and count them in and out. It’s not unheard of for boats to break down in the tunnel, and not very easy for them to be rescued. Not everyone makes it out……
The resident skeleton who lives inside the tunnel
But thankfully we did, it took us exactly 40 minutes, 10 minutes longer than the first time.
Almost through
Tim was to catch the train home from Stoke so because the rain was now torrential we moored up and enjoyed a cooked breakfast, but by the time we had washed up, the weather had improved, so the next 5 locks were ok. This section of canal is going downhill so the locks are a bit easier to work.
Now that we are happily cruising again, our plan is to head south and east, to be closer to Suffolk. Our planned destination is affected by the start of the winter stoppages, and I hate to say it but they are only 5 and a bit weeks away. Looking at the map is a bit nerve wracking. I haven’t got enough fingers and toes to count the number of locks before the Harecastle tunnel. I am reliably informed this section is known as Heartbreak Hill. Although as we awoke all was peaceful and calm so we could never have guessed what was ahead of us.
Early morning opposite Bramble cutting
After leaving the Anderton lift, we’d aimed for Bramble cuttings, a picnic area just for boaters, but apparently you stand more chance of winning the lottery that getting a mooring here, hence we knocked in the pins opposite, and just enjoyed the aroma of BBQ drifting our way. We were 15 miles from the tunnel and there were 35 locks to pass through. Having languished in a marina for 6 weeks, our beautifully toned bodies were showing signs of neglect so we decided to spilt the journey over a few days. From here we went through Middlewich.
Middlewich
I would have liked to stop to explore this area dominated by its canal trade and the junction of the Shropshire union. But we wanted to get on before the weather broke.
The junction of the Shropshire union canal on the left
We had an enjoyable days cruise, just 9 locks pleasantly spaced out, until we reached Rookery moorings just south of Ettiley Heath, out in the middle of nowhere, perfect.
Early morning at Rookery mooring
It’s just a short distance from the real start to Heartbreak Hill at Wheelock, 26 single locks over 6 miles. To help the old working boats a twin lock was added to most of the locks meaning two boats could travel up or down at the same time. Harder work for the navvies that built the canal but much easier for the boater, and also potentially saves on water.
Wheelock bottom lock, the start of Heartbreak Hill
Sadly in this day and age only half of the twins have been maintained, but it wasn’t a problem because there wasn’t too much canal traffic and although most of the locks were set against us, all the traffic going up hill had naturally spaced out so no queues, or feeling the need to rush because someone was waiting. And of course we’d been blessed with glorious weather.
Guess who’s doing all the hard work
And as always we take great pleasure when we cruise underneath a motorway, the M6 this time.
Under the M6
And an overnight stop at Hassall Green. It was a treat to find ourselves moored up with fellow bloggers on Cleddau, always nice to put faces to names.
Plenty of mooring for an overnight stop at Hassall Green
Another morning and another promising day,
And another promising day, that’s Cleddau infront of us
I’d miscalculated last night at thought we’d done 12 locks but I think it was only 10, leaving 16 left, but hey this has to beat commuting into the office.
It’s a hard life
Not surprisingly we were fit to drop as we neared Kidsgrove, But looking back we would do it all again, it’s a beautiful section of the canal.
But the views are worth it
Then to put the icing on the cake, our son Tim arrived by train to help us through the last few locks. I emailed CRT to book our passage through the tunnel, (an extra necessity thanks to Covid) but to our horror although I asked for a slot after 10am the only spaces left were at 8am. Poor Tim, he didn’t get much scintillating conversation after tea, cause we both fell asleep.
Who’d have thought a few days trip to explore the River Weaver would have turned into a several weeks staycation in a marina. Much as we have been grateful for the friendship and sanctuary, and not to mention convenience of Northwich Quay, we are confirmed continuous cruisers, and we’ve been desperate to be on the move again. With Firecrest restored to being a fully self sufficient boat again, we crept silently away this morning. Well it would have been silent if we hadn’t had farewell waves from our neighbours, perhaps they were glad to see the back of us.
Leaving Northwich Quay Marina mooring
Despite the early cloud it soon looked like a promising day as we approached the Anderton boat lift
Approaching the lift
And at 11:30 It was our turn to be swallowed up by the cavenous structure
We were to share our passage up with Leo, whom we hadn’t met before but they immediately recognised us from having read our blog, thankyou Leo, it’s always nice to meet our readers (And again we apologise for not having comments or contact enabled, that’s one step beyond my technical comprehension).
Nestled in with Leo
Strangely we found going up more exciting than coming down, I think it’s because we were much more aware of the opposite caisson descending.
I hope it doesn’t collapse
But it’s always fun to see your counterbalance midway
One up one down
And to wish them well for the river 50 foot below
Looking down onto the weaver
But we had had our fill of rivers for this year. Back to Canal life. Our plan is to head south. It doesn’t feel right on such a balmy day like this but we only have 6 weeks before the planned winter closures start in November, and we don’t want a last minute rush or to get caught by any other imposed lockdown. So we turned right as we left the lift and manoeuvred though all the boats enjoying this very pretty area and past the Lion Salt works that we’d walked up to.
The Lion Salt works from the canal
And from the 19th century salt chemical works onto the 21st century salt chemical works, as we cruised through the TATA plant at Lostock
21st century industry
One of the pipe bridges had been enhanced by some fancy iron cut outs recognising the regions salty chemical heritage.
The canal continued to be dominated by its mining heritage with boat yards, historic wharfs and flashes but after a few miles we were in truely beautiful rural England,
This little heritage museum on the banks of the Trent and Mersey Canal is well worth an hour or two, the £6 entrance fee and a 40 minute walk up from our Northwich Quay Marina mooring. Usually there are guided tours with knowledgeable local people who really know their stuff but alas we just had to follow the arrows.
The lion salt works
Although it is no longer producing salt, the buildings and much of the machinery are still in place and you really get a feel for the sweat and toil that went into making something we all take for granted. It might be a natural product, but it doesn’t grow on trees. I could impress you all with my scientific knowledge, but the museum posters sums it up so well.
Here’s the science
Cheshire Salt production began as soon as early man realised that the briney water in some of the ponds could preserve food. But through the centuries the surface ponds have gone, used up, evaporated,or drained away. In the 18th century rock salt was discovered underground, and this became a profitable mining industry. But that became uneconomic and in the late 19th century, commercial salt production returned to what had been the old cottage industry method but on a grand scale. And this story is told at the Lion Salt works.
The pumping station
Shafts were sunk to the underground salt layer. Water was pumped in to create a stream which dissolved the rock salt to make brine.
What lies beneath
This was then pumped back into holding tanks and then into sheds with boiling pans the size of a tennis court.
The boiling salt pans
Coal fired furnaces on the ground floor underneath the pans, were stoked to a specific temperature, not only for the water to evaporate off, but, and this is the clever bit, by varying the temperature and the length of time the evaporation takes, the shape and size of the salt crystal is controlled, thus creating different qualities of salt that could be used for differing tasks.
At 38°C fishery salt is a very course, hard to dissolve crystal, used for preserving fish. This salt is taken straight to the warehouses to dry out. 93°C produces a course large grained common salt used in the chemical, manufacturing and pottery industry. It took up to a fortnight for the evaporation to be complete. 110°C produces the fine salt where the pan was ‘doped’ to aid the quick formation of fine crystals used in home cooking, in mediaeval times the doping ingredient was a preciously guarded secret for each salt producer, it could be anything from ox blood or pigs urine, but the Lion Works used egg whites, animal jelly or soap powder, though I’m still not sure I really want to know. The men that looked after the pans were skilled at their trade, known as lump men. But it was a dangerous tiring job. It was like working in a sauna, except that the salt would chaff their skin. They risked their lives raking the salt across the boiling water, cause they wouldn’t survive falling in.
Hard physical labour for the lump men
Once the desired crystal size had been obtained the salt was raked to the edge, scooped out and packed into block shaped moulds.
The blocks of packed salt were taken to the drying room for several weeks.
The drying room with a heated bricks
And then taken by conveyor belt into a milling machine to be ground back into usable crystals.
The milling shutes
You can see how the wood has been corroded by the salt.
The milling shutes
At the end of a gruelling shift the men and women would nip across the road to the pub to rehydrate themselves and they would also add salt to their beer to compensate for what they’d lost through sweat.
The final stage of the operation
The finished salt was then bagged and taken by barge to the Mersey ports to be shipped all around the world. Nigeria was one of the largest importers of lion salt, but when the country fell into civil war in the early 70s business dried up. The Lion Salt works closed It’s doors in 1986.
The rock salt used for gritting roads is still mined at Winsford about 5 miles downstream. But as we all know too much salt is bad for us, so as Firecrest’s repairs have now been completed, and with some covid lock restrictions still being in place, we have decided to cut our losses and abandon our plans to explore the River Weaver and Winsford.
Hopefully there won’t be any more subsidence causing canal breaches like this one outside the lion salt works in 1907, cause once we get cruising we don’t want any more stoppages.
Having found ourselves stranded with a broken down boat, we’ve had plenty of time to explore Northwich. It’s not a place I’ve ever visited before and I really had no knowledge of its who’s how’s and why’s. We knew the Romans had been to Chester so it stands to reason that this little Cheshire town would probably also have a story to tell. And our first impressions were right. The town centre was full of beautiful intricate of black and white timber buildings…..
Quite an assortment of buildings. We like the one imitating our canal life, a “narrowhouse”
But hang on a minute, a lot of them have construction dates on them , 1890, 1909 etc, and as far as I knew the Tudors had long since gone out of fashion so what was going on here. Luckily Tim and Pru got here before us and had televised their visit to the area, so I did have my suspicions There two local museums and being closer, we decided to visit the Weaver Hall workhouse first.. Here’s my potted history of Northwich, a town built on salt. The Romans set up camp because of the easy river crossing and the brine ponds. They called it Condate, (which means confluence, in this case of the rivers Dane and Weaver). Salt/saline was a valuable commodity to them, there’s even some thought that the word Salary derives from the latin Saline. Lead pans used for salt evaporation have been found in local archeological digs. Another clue to its history is Watling Street, the long Roman M1, passes through Northwich. The Romans left and during medieval times the town became known as Northwich, “wich” being the term given to places associated with salt production. In 1670 the Smith-Barrys of Marbury Hall discovered rock salt underground when they were looking to further their fortune with coal, so changed their business plan and salt mining began.
White coal
However in the late 1800s it became uneconomic to physically mine salt so production was changed to pumping water into the mines to create brine, which was then pumped back out and evaporated much like the canny Romans had done, except on a much much larger scale. It didn’t take long though for the consequences of the mining made themselves known. Rock salt mines leave 30% behind to create structural support pillars. However, pumping water into the mines caused these structural pillars to dissolve and consequently by the 1880s large parts of Northwich suffered severe subsidence.
Imagine waking up with a bump
Undeterred by their sinking town, those masterful Victorian engineers devised a system to shore up the remaining buildings and rebuilt a town full of mock Tudor buildings, hence the dates that caused us such confusion originally. Although the mechanics can’t be seen a lot of the high street buildings have steel supports which could be jacked up to relevel buildings that were collapsing. In recent years the mines have been backfilled to prevent further problems.
Necessity the mother of invention
Of course there’s a lot more to Northwich than salt. The by-products led scientists to create new products. ICI, the Imperial Chemical Industries was the amalgamation of three companies in 1926. Polythene was created here in 1933. A mixed blessing in this age of environmental awareness.
The Winnington ICI plant opposite the Anderton boat lift
Northwich however doesn’t present itself as an industrial wasteland. The mining subsidence has allowed the creation of naturalized open land and flashes, which the community can enjoy.
Neumann’s flashes
Again, we’ve been hampered by Covid from exploring inside the buildings as we’d choose, but much as we’d have preffered not to spend a few weeks here, Northwich hasn’t been such a bad place to break down.
There loads of interesting facts about the salt industry in the Lion Salt works, I hope my salty tale has whet your appetite to stop off here to discover more, I’ll share our visit to the other museum, The Lion Salt works in my next post.
Oh no, little did we know what was to befall us. After the excitement and novelty of using the Anderton Boat lift, we moored for the night on the floating pontoons at Barons Quay, Northwich. The town on one side and the tranquillity of Furey Woods on the offside. The next morning we set off downstream towards Winsford, end of the Weaver navigation for narrowboaters. Having painstakingly set up our VHF radio so we could call ahead to alert the lockies, like we’d done for previous manned river locks, we realised it wouldn’t be necessary on the Weaver as CRT has decreed that due to Covid, the locks will only be operated on alternate days at fixed times, on a first come first served basis. With a pair of lockies driving between locks. We’re not impressed by this, but it is what it is, at least we were cruising. So with the paraphernalia stowed away, but still wearing our life jackets off we set. Hunts lock is only 10 minutes cruise from Northwich We were the only boat waiting to go up but there were already 8 waiting to come back down. We didn’t rush because we knew had plenty of time to get to to the next lock at Vale Royal, before the lockies arrived.
Leaving Hunts lock to enjoy a peaceful days cruise downstream
With generator running to charge our batteries, we set off enjoying the wide water and spotting fishermen nestled amongst the wooded bank. We’d enjoyed our Sunday morning cooked breakfast and the aroma of bacon still lingered in the galley. All was well with the world…. when a look of concern flickered across Eric’s face, “what’s that smell, something’s burning….” As I reported the cooker was switched of, the concern turned to panic as Eric realised it was an electrical burning that he could smell, it had to be the generator, thrusting the tiller into my hand he leapt into action to turn it off at the fuel shut off point. Being on an unfamiliar tree lined river meant that we couldn’t just moor up on the bank to investigate, but at least we still had power to cruise. And after a moments quick thinking we decided to turn around and head straight back through Hunts lock, catching the lockies still working the 8 boats down that we had left behind. That caused a bit of amusement, to them, not us, we’d only cruised for 10 minutes and we were still bewildered and shocked at what could potentially have been very dangerous if Eric hadn’t caught it in time before it caught fire. Back in Northwich I was able to phone the marina and negotiate an overnight mooring with the safety of shore power. We knew it was serious when nothing Eric did could spark life back into it. “It” being a good quality, reliable, reasonably new, low use 11kw generator. Most boaters don’t have need for such a large built in geni such as ours but being an electric boat we run the geni about 5 to 7 hours per week to charge our batteries, the batteries that power everything on Firecrest. For us the generator isn’t a luxury, it’s an essential. Everyone popped in with words of advice and encouragement but alas this was a job for the dedicated manufacturers team.
Watching the precarious lift out
I am not going to go into the details of the repair saga, suffice to say that I’ve had time to get to know Northwich quite well, we have made friends, and been on the receiving end of a lot of kindness. And that we have learnt several valuable lessons.
Keep your emergency shut off switches easily accessible at all times, that includes not storing spare ropes and other boat clutter infront of them.
Don’t build your boat around things that might need replacing, having to dismantle the engine bay to get the generator out is difficult, frustrating and annoying.
You can’t cruise a boat when you’ve taken 280kg of generator out. Unbalanced boats don’t draw the water underneath effectively, and you can’t steer straight.
Don’t make too make too many plans when youre a narrowboater, ok we already knew this.
Northwich Quay Marina has been brilliant, Heather the manager has been so helpful with local knowledge and support, but Marina life isn’t for us. We can’t wait to get cruising again, hope it won’t be long now.
When we are so close, it would have been wrong not to take this opportunity to enjoy another one of the Seven Wonders of the Waterways, the Anderton Boat lift. And then spend a few days exploring the River Weaver. But thanks to Covid, everything is running at reduced hours to allow for social distancing, so we enjoyed an extra unplanned night on the 48 hour Anderton Nature Park mooring before we could go down.
The Anderton Nature Park visitor mooring
It was a bit of a grey day when we set off but we’d donned our life jackets and set up the VHF radio so were all set to experience this magnificent Victorian Structure and river life. We paid our fee of £5 and arrived at holding mooring on time. We were greeted by the team, who explained the sequence before being allowed under the bridge and into the first caisson.
Leaving the canal
Under the guillotine closure, that dripped goodness knows what onto us, and onto the iron aqueduct protruding over the River.
This felt a bit like walking the plank only we were still in our boat
Each caisson can accommodate two narrowboats, but this time we were travelling solo. We passed under the machinery housing and tied up as instructed.
Scarily high
80 feet above the River Weaver meant the views were impressive
That’s the river Weaver down there
But looking up, it was really the structure and mechanics above us that we were over awed by.
The overhead pully system remains for show
Surrounded by ironwork we were given a final safety briefing and a short history lesson before our descent.
The lift was built in 1875 to facilitate easier transport of goods, particularly for the potteries of Stoke on Trent and salt from the Cheshire Salt pan. It had been costly, time consuming and dangerous transferring goods between the river and the canal so the two companies from the river, and the railway, (who ran the canal) cooperated, and the lift was born. Essentially it consists of two water filled caissons (iron troughs), as a boat enters a caisson, water is displaced so the weight stays the equal in each side. The caissons are then sealed. A small amount of water is released from the lower caisson causing the upper one to descend. Only a small amount of additional power is required to complete the full cycle. Over it’s lifetime there have been various improvements from the original hydrolic ram system and counterbalancing weights. A lot of the original mechanics have been retained as artifacts on site. There is an interesting summary on wiki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderton_Boat_Lift that is worth reading the detail.
We waved to our ascendants as they travelled upwards and we travelled down,
It’s the first time our narrowboat has been counterbalanced by a little cruiser
And after about 10 minutes we reached river level
Our guillotine was raised and we cruised out onto the river Weaver
And onto the River
It is really from this position that you can really begin to appreciate the ginormity of the structure and understand why it has the nickname “the catherdral of the canals”
It’s huge
By the 1970s commercial traffic had dried up and the lift was being used mainly for recreational craft. In 1983 corrosion was severe enough to declare it unsafe for use. It was uneconomic to repair so permenantly closed down. Thankfully a group of enthusiastic volunteers formed a trust and various partnerships raised sufficient funds for it to be restored and reopened in 2002. CRT now run an award winning visitor centre and viewing area on site.
From the viewing area
Although I think it is more for gongoozler and family picnics than for boaters, I liked seeing the coming together of 3 centuries hard work. The Victorian boat lift from the 19th century, the ICI factory on the south bank, that arose as an off shoot of the salt works in the 20th century, and now the 21st century priority, leisure.
Something for everyone
The cost of maintenance will always be high, so the on going future of the lift will always be a balancing act, can we as a country afford to maintain this engineering masterpiece. I hope so, but I would urge boaters to use it as soon as possible, it’s not an experience to be missed. We’ll be back soon.
How each canal has it’s own style, or perhaps it’s a county thing. Maybe one day I’ll be able to enter one of those “where am I?” competitions and get it right. As we waved goodbye to the Bridgewater, with its distinctive crane and stop plank system -which seems eminently sensible to have the lifting mechanism right next to the heavy beams used to create a temporary dam across the canal.
Stop plank cranes on the Bridgewater canal
We found ourselves in rural Cheshire, with tunnels to provided transit across the rolling hillside.
3 big tunnels in 5 miles
Tunnels are always a bit scary, what happens if …. well we don’t go there, but these tunnels are long enough and narrow enough to warrant a timed one way system. We are only allowed to enter during the permitted time slot, in this case, between half past and twenty to the hour. And outside the Preston Brook tunnel you can see the stop planks ready to be deployed once the suitable crane has arrived.
Low tech traffic lights
There are 3 tunnels at the start of the Trent and Mersey canal, and as we meandered along, enjoying second breakfast,
That’s mums homemade marmalade
we couldn’t help but notice nearly all the tunnels and bridges are painted white.
We can only think of two reasons, for the tunnels it certainly aids visibility, against a woody hillside,
Or perhaps it’s just aesthetically pleasing, either way we found ourselves really enjoying the relaxation of this area.
Looking towards Saltisford lock on the river weaver.
And if you look carefully you can see a white bridge in the middle of this photo, it’s crossing the river Weaver which is our current destination.
It was our last permitted day of 7 on the Bridgewater canal, and although we could have continued straight on, onto the Trent and Mersey, we decided to turn right, under a rather unassuming bridge and follow the 5 mile route to Runcorn.
Turning towards Runcorn
You could be forgiven for thinking this was a side arm, but in fact it is the proximity to the Mersey that made Runcorn the significant and profitable end destination to this canal. We suspect very few boaters bother to explore this section if they are traversing north to south, it was very quiet and predominantly rural. We didn’t meet a single boat moving in either direction it’s entire length and back.
Pleasant passage on the bridgewater
Although the quality of the Towpath and the occassional village school meant we didn’t feel cut off from the world.
Merry mural on the school
It took less than 2 hours to reach the official visitor moorings outside the Brindley Theatre, from where we set off to explore this industrial town. Although Ethelfleda established a settlement here in 915 AD, to guard against marauding Vikings, it wasn’t until the industrial revolution that Runcorn established itself as place of commercial value. And in 1964 it was designated a “new town” and it doubled in size. It’s not the prettiest of places by any means, but our focus was to see the Mersey crossings and the Manchester ship canal. We walked thought the concrete shopping centre and came across the beach.
Manchester Ship Canal
But this isn’t the sea, it’s actually the ship canal, with the Silver Jubilee bridge in the background. There’s an info board highlighting what can be seen from this view point.
You are here
So of course we wanted to get as close as possible to this awesome structure. For those of you that like facts and figures. Copied from wiki Construction began in 1956, The main arch is 361 yards (330 m) long and each side arch measures 83 yards (76 m). During its construction 720,000 rivets were used. Its height over the river bed is 285 feet (87 m) and the headroom over the ship canal is 80 feet (24 m). During its construction 5,900 tons of steel were used and 7,500 tons of concrete. The bridge requires constant repainting, with each coat using 6,000 imperial gallons (27,300 l) of paint. On the Runcorn side the approach viaducts are 359 yards (328 m) in length, and on the Widnes side 166 yards (152 m). The cost of constructing the bridge was £2,433,000.[18] At the time of its construction it had the third longest steel arch span in the world. It had the longest vehicular span in the country, but this record was held for only a few weeks until the Tamar Bridge was completed. By 2001 it was the 10th longest steel arch bridge, and at that time was just 8 inches (20 cm) short of having Europe’s largest span. It carries over 80000 vehicles a day, 10 times more than it was designed for.
Towering over Runcorn
and to our pleasure, (though not the locals) the bridge is currently closed to road traffic, whilst they upgrade it and add toll booths. We were still able to walk across.
Work in progress
We were only able to see clearly on the east side (towards Manchester) as we first crossed the ship canal, then the wide open mud flats of the Mersey at low tide, with the Fiddlers Ferry power station and industry of Merseyside on the north.
Views east from the silver Jubilee bridge
As we arrived into Widness in Merseyside, we saw the historic Mersey Pub, aka the Snig, where boatmen and women who had to brave rowing across the estuary, were served the local delicacy Snig pie…. made with locally caught eels
The Snig in Widness
When we were able to look West we saw the equally impressive railway bridge which runs parallel to the road bridge
The 19th century rail bridge
And in the distance, about 1.5km east, the Mersey Gateway bridge which opened in 2017
Looking towards the new Mersey Gateway
Having had our fill of bridges for the day we returned to Firecrest. I nipped into the convenient supermarket whilst Eric took Firecrest the remaining ¼ mile to the end of navigation and turning point.
Victoria arm, End or start of the Bridgewater canal
So we could return to Preston Brook and enter it’s tunnel through to the Trent and Mersey.
Preston Brook tunnel
Again as with most of the places we have visited on the Bridgewater canal, I would happily have stayed longer to explore more. But the Anderton boat lift awaits us on the next stage of our adventure.
Although Eric was born in Yorkshire, his family roots are around this area of Cheshire and, what was formerly, Lancashire. And this week has been very much centred on family, after earlier visits from Tim, Jane and Kevin we were now looking back in time to places where Eric’s predecessors had roamed the streets, and as it turned out also the canals. We moored up at Stockton Heath which is nestled between the Bridgewater and the Manchester ship canal, with Warrington being on the north side of the MSC.
Lumb Brook aqueduct
We deferred to brother David, who has taken a lot of effort to collate the information about the family. Mum was born in Warrington, sadly her father, died in an industrial accident while she was still at school, but Gran kept the family together by taking a job in the Stockton Heath telephone exchange. Mum was never able to follow her own dream of training to become a teacher as she also took work in the telephone exchange. She used to tell us stories about scurrying to get to work before the swing bridge was opened to let the first boats of the day along the ship canal. She’d be half an hour late and in serious trouble if she got her timing wrong. Eric and I took the opportunity to walk across the bridge and remember her.
Stockon Heath bridge, designed by Edward Leader Williams, same man that designed the Barton Swing Aqueduct, crossed by mum and Gran in the 1930s and ’40s
Eric’s father was also born in Warrington, and he did get chance to complete his education, eventually gaining a doctorate in theology
The Rev Dr Harry, Dad
Although he knew he had a calling to become a Methodist minister, he followed his mentors advice and worked elsewhere before he trained for the ministry. Mum and Dad met and married at (now demolished and rebuilt) Bold street Methodist church in Warrington. I don’t know what it was like then but now Stockton Heath seems quite a trendy place and had the Bridgewater time restrictions allowed we would happily have explored further, we did see a blue plaque, but alas not commemorating Eric’s great achievement’s, it’s where George Formby lived.
We continued cruising through leafy Cheshire, through Daresbury which is where Dads grandparents Willie and Martha Jones had lived on a farm at Newton Bank around 1865 to 1890
Martha and Willie Jones, great grandparents
The weather was against us with strong winds, rain and poor mooring so we weren’t able to explore on foot. But we did go on to Preston Brook because that is where Willie had worked as a canal porter. Now the home of a rather uninspiring Midland chandlers
Midland Chandlers on the site of Dandys wharf with the M60 behind
The info board shows there were several wharfs here, where the Bridgewater shortly joins with the Trent and Mersey Canal or takes a sharp bend under a bridge and continues 5 miles to Runcorn.
From David’s investigations we suspect Willie worked at Norton Wharf just beyond the bend,
Approaching Norton Wharf heading towards Runcorn
which is now a canoe manufacturer and housing development.
I wonder what Willie would have made of this
When Eric and I first decided to move onto the water we had no idea of his great grandfathers past. Around 1890 Willie left the canals and moved to Warrington to become a white lead worker. I think that says something about the hardship of life on the canals that white lead was preferable to coal and cotton. It’s been a strangely surreal time walking the same footpaths and bridges that our family was 150 years ago.
Preston Brook Bridge and the cottages on Willies walk to work
I hope someone will read this in 150 years and feel the same sense of family pride that I do.
(Since my previous post David has sent more information about relatives working in Lymm, which I have added onto that page.)
