locks – Narrowboat Firecrest

Moving down to Middlewich

After our traumatic wake up sliding ungracefully out of bed on Monday morning, we were relishing a few days of a rural idyll. It’s funny how coming through the Harecastle Tunnel is a bit like teleporting us into a completely different world. The rundown redbrick industrial revolution makes way for green growth and rural beauty. It’s the contrasts that keep this living adventure alive and so exciting for us. Even the same stretch of canal can look very different as the seasons change. Today we woke up in Cheshire not Staffordshire- where Firecrest had been since the 3rd May 2025. The actual county border is where the Macclesfield canal aqueduct crosses over the Trent and Mersey Canal at Hardings Wood Junction although we weren’t in the right frame of mind to celebrate at the time. Today we were setting off down the hill, aiming to get back to the Paintshed where Nick was going to reseal our leaking portholes. But we weren’t rushing. It might only be 13 miles to Middlewich but there are a lot of locks to work through. At least they are pretty.

church lawton locks

We broke our journey at Rode Heath, where there’s a good length of visitor mooring, and it wasnt busy

The sunshine is making everything look so pretty

Even the obligatory photo of us passing under the M6

We moored up quite close to the motorway, its just a gentle hum in the background rather than being invasively noisy.

Eric decided it was time to screw the new pole support onto the roof – only a year after our repaint.

Always an anxious time drilling holes in your roof

Some early morning wake ups are worth waking up for

We stayed here a few days before completing the last of the Wheelock locks.

And another quiet mooring at Wheelock.

Where is everybody?

Eric’s cousin lives quite close by so we arranged to meet up for a meal at the canalside Italian restaurant Barchetta, and I must admit it was a very enjoyable meal. Not only was the company good, portions were generous and service was friendly and attentive. And they do an early bird menu till 6:30 for £15. We’ll definitely go there again.
Final days cruise in this little trip found us a mooring in Middlewich above Kings Lock.

Booth Lane moorings, nice and close to King’s Lock fish and chips shop.

Five and a Quarter Miles

Another week of gentle cruising- although I should say one day’s cruise and a week of watching the world go by. Before the heatwave hit us the weather was a bit iffy. We’d moored up in Alrewas under a rainbow.

Looking towards Bagnall Lock at Alrewas, the river navigation board is on green, good to go

Not only do rainbows require rain, so do rivers, and if CRT get lucky, they get a lot of rain, but at Alrewas that means the short quarter mile section where the river Trent and the canal merge, it’s prone to fast flow and unsafe navigation. We didn’t want to hang around and wait for that to happen, so we donned our life jackets

And set off through Alrewas Lock past the “Quarter Mile Bridge” which the Trent flows under

Leaving Alrewas Lock to cross the River Trent

and across the canal where the water suddenly becomes clear enough to see the bottom- or you could if there wasn’t a garden of green down there

Makes a change from the usual muddy water

and out the other side around the floating barrier that prevents narrowboats getting swept the wrong way over the weir.

At this point I want to recall an incident we witnessed the day before at Alrewas Lock, as a reminder of the need to take Lock safety seriously. A boat had entered the lock to come up the canal. The crew had wound up to let the water in, and were walking across the top lock gate ready to open it. but there was a big splash, they had fallen off the lock gate into the canal. Not because they were being careless but because the boat had shot forward and hit the lock gate with such force that it shuddered and knocked the lady off. We rushed to help but there were enough people around that we weren’t needed and the lady was hauled out with only her pride injured. If the lock had still been filling she could have been sucked under never to be seen again. What we then found out was that the driver of the boat had left the helm and climbed off the boat because their dog was misbehaving on the bank, so there was no one actually controlling the boat, and the lady who had been knocked in was actually from the previous boat who had stopped to help. We all know accidents happen, but could this have been prevented if there had been someone at the helm? who knows. This time everyone lived to tell the tale and learn some lessons, – control your dogs, don’t bash into the lock gates and hold on tight when you cross a lock gate.
Anyway, back to our own story. Although the Trent isn’t a mile wide at this point, we think the bridge gets it’s name because it runs parallel to the canal spanning the flood plain for a Quarter Mile, between the Lock and just beyond the weir.

After the river section, we passed through Wychnor lock. The canal is quite busy at the moment and there was a crew waiting to come up in the next boat. They were already in position and offered to work the lock for us, hence a rare opportunity for me to post a photo of Firecrest leaving a lock

It’s about 5 miles down to Branston from Alrewas, and it feels like half of it is running parallel to the A38, its tedious and noisy, but we make it to one of the pretty locks, Tattenhall Lock

And find ourselves a pleasant mooring at the Branston water park

Just in time for another rainbow, whilst we were here, Adam and Adrian cruised past on Briar Rose, just enough time for a quick hello- must make it longer next time

And yes, Branston is the home of…..

Although it’s no longer made here.

And with it being a water park, no shortage of youngsters enjoying themselves

and the water levels are still causing a problem

After an action packed 10 days moored in Stone, which saw us sticking on the solar panels, witnessing a near disaster at Meaford Locks, and taking advantage of us still having our car to explore a little further afield, we were ready move on. I drove the car back to our daughter’s- who had lent it to us back in January for all our toing and froing and utilised my brand new rail card to catch the train back to the boat. Was normality about to be restored? at least the water levels seemed to be OK.
Or so we thought.
There are 4 locks in Stone. As we passed through the first, we noticed the replacement beam was not made of the traditional oak but a plank laminate. Questions were raised about its durability, but at least for now it didn’t look like it was going to collapse.

We passed through Star lock, where, at the Star Inn, James Brindley and his investors met to plan the construction of the Grand Trunk Canal, now the Trent and Mersey Canal. We had gone in earlier to pay homage, where we discovered that, not only was the Star Inn famous for its canal building patrons, it also has an entry in the Guinness book of records for having the most floor levels of a public house. 13 – which is due to subsidence- which doesnt sound healthy for a canal. (Or for anyone having had one too many)

We knew the water levels were still low, but as Eric tried to drive the boat out of the lock, we all heard a horrible crunching. Were we caught on the bottom? Not knowing quite what was underneath of us, I closed the gates and let a few inches of water back into the lock, sufficient to refloat us. And then enlisted some passers by to lend me their muscle power to re open the gates for us to escape. We think there must have been a stone that was just proud enough to catch us, cause after a moments panic, we were OK. The lock needed dredging, and although I did report our incident, CRT are running in crisis management mode and there’s no time or money for preventative action. After a quick stop at the M&S water point, which ironically was fast flowing and easy, we were on our way. The next mile down to Aston Lock was hard work, we needed to keep in the middle of the channel otherwise we were scraping the bottom. Passing boats was a struggle but the word coming up was that the levels were improving.

Below Aston Lock, 45.9 miles to Shardlow, 46.1 to Preston Brook

Due to intense conversation with the upcoming boater – comparing notes about water levels of course, I forgot to take a photo of the mile marker. Aston Lock is the half way point on the T&M. 46 miles to both Preston Brook and Shardlow.
We were travelling on just another half hour because the storm clouds were gathering and we’d had enough excitement for one day. Even the sheep were heading for home

Yes that looks a good mooring

And we made it just in time to tie up before the heavens opened.

warning low water levels

Notices had been coming through thick and fast from CRT about water shortages and closing lock flights. One of the Stone locks was closed for a couple of days for repair, Heartbreak Hill was padlocked temporarily. Those poor holiday makers, how frustrating to have planned to do the four counties ring in a week, only to find themselves unable to plough on with their 9 hour cruising days. Poor hire companies as well for that matter. We’d already felt the bottom at Whitebridge lane as lock usage drained the pound, (section of canal “impounded” between two locks) but as we were sitting in our nice comfy dry boat eating our tea, the heavens opened and we all breathed a sigh of relief. Eric and I shared a sympathetic smile with boat going past us at 6.30pm in the pouring rain. “Why on earth don’t they moor up here where there’s space and call it a day?” we thought, they’ve got to get up the 4 Meaford locks in the rain now, where’s the fun in that. No wonder we didn’t see any more boats that day. Just before we turned in for the night I checked my emails, oh no, another closure….. boat sunk in Meaford locks, rescue squad arriving to assess at 9am…..was it those poor bedraggled holiday makers, or had they got through.

Only one way to find out, as soon as we’d had our first cup of coffee we walked up to the flight. Bottom Lock all clear,
Second lock, the pound looked low,

Mmmm, not much water going over that overflow

Oh dear as we rounded the corner we saw a sight we didn’t want to see again

It was our unfortunate holiday makers,

There was already a gathering of CRT men, I suspect they were the local volunteers and the hire company staff on sight

Not what you expect to see in the engine bay.

The engine had obviously been under water

Theres a lot of weed where there shouldn’t be weed

But the bow was clearly stuck on the cill,
No one could be quite sure how it happened, apparently it happened very quickly. The lock had obviously been full as they had been able to open the gate and had started to leave the lock, when probably due to low water levels they had caught on the cill. Unable to close the gate to add more water as the leaky lock gates then drained the lock and the boat tipped back. It must have been terrifying. Apparently they all got off safely.

And with the top gates open the pound above drained completely.

You can see why it’s so horrible cruising when the water levels are low with so many stones on the bottom.

We debated about whether or not it was acceptable to post pictures of a boat in distress, but as neither the crew or the boat are identifiable we decided it was a salutary lesson to us all. We don’t think the crew was actually at fault, possibly just inexperienced, What they should have done, was let more water into the pound above the lock to refloat their boat. But would we have thought quickly enough to do that in the heat of the moment, who can say. The RCR (river canal rescue) turned up at 9 and they set about planning how to sort it out. So we returned to Firecrest for some breakfast. We planned to walk back up later to see how they were doing, but we couldn’t quite believe it, by lunch time the boat was rescued the pound refilled and boaters were on the move once more. The hire company even managed to get the engine running on the sunk boat and were cruising it back to base.

But it’s only 6 miles

….and 25 locks from the bottom lock at Wheelock to the top lock at Red Bull, Kidsgrove. No wonder it’s known as Heartbreak Hill. Even the summit of that big hill Everest is only 5.5miles above sea level, but I’ve more sense than to attempt that only carrying a windlass. Not to mention my dodgy logic. We set off from Ettiley Heath at 7am so as to beat the heat.

The forecast was for the hottest day of the year so far, mid 20’s, so we only planned to cruise until 11 then find a tree to moor under.

Entering Wheelock Bottom Lock, the start of the flight

As per ususal we gave a big sigh of relief that our chosen mode of transport took us under the M6 and not along it. Although to be fair, the country would be a very different place if we still relied on the canals to get goods from A to B.

That caravan is nearly as long as Firecrest,

We found our tree after 12 locks and settled down to watch the world go by, except it didn’t, the canal is exceptionally quiet, only 6 boats in the whole day cruised past us.

The next day was a lot busier, although some people had the right idea.

Wonder what they serve at the Red Bull pub?

We’d done the hill in 2 days, and it really wasn’t too bad. It’s a pretty section of canal and there’s several nice mooring places to break up the journey. Plan B had been to turn onto the Macclesfield canal here, but alas, due to the April breach we were now onto Plan C, travelling south. We topped up at the very convenient canal side Lidl, and set off through the tomato soup to go through the Harecastle Tunnel.

“Who said red and green should never be seen”

I didn’t manage to catch the skeleton on camera very well this transit, it must have been running away….

or was it running to catch us, either way I wasn’t hanging around to find out. After 38 minutes underground we were happy to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

We moored up outside the Middleport Pottery to plan our next adventure

Looking good for your age

After 4 lock free months it was time to get back into the swing of things.

Passing the entrance to the Middlewich Branch

There are just 5 locks on the Trent and Mersey going through Middlewich, which allowed us to stretch those muscles and start building up some stamina again.

Kings Lock on the Trent and Mersey, Middlewich

And of course after all that hard work….. with the help from three volunteer lockies, we had to reward ourselves with the best fish and chips on the cut from King’s Lock Chippie.

After all we were celebrating my birthday

Chocolate Fudge cake, with the appropriate number of candles

Yes we did eat it all, but not in one go. We moved on to Ettiley Heath where we tried to bribe Mike Carter with a slice when he came to do our Boat Safety inspection. He wasn’t having any of it, not that he needed bribery, Firecrest is well maintained and passed with flying colours.

Looking towards Watchlane Flash at Ettiley Heath

We moved onto Firecrest in 2017. You might have noticed that after 8 years we have finally added our painted Firecrest image as a blog icon so if you have stored our blog on your home pages or own blog roll hopefully it will be a little easier to see. Apologies that we still don’t accept comments on our posts.

Tewkesbury to Gloucester

As we’d reached the last day of our 14 night ANT licence, we only had one night in Tewkesbury. Of course I made straight for the Abbey to enjoy one of my favourite sculptures in the country. It’s called Touching Souls and depicts 4 children sitting in a circle with their feet touching. Their soles and their souls reaching out. It was created as a copy its Romanian artist Mico Kauffman, who sculpted the original for the United Methodist Church in Tewksbury, Massachusetts.
The entire high street and town centre is interesting to walk down, with a merry mix of independent shops in olde world buildings which encourage you to look beyond the modern day window displays. And even after we first stopped here in 2017, I still rate the Gloucester Old Spot sausage, from Halfords butchers the best, and we’ve done a lot of research. I also like this gate to the garden of the Tudor House Hotel on the high street.

Where antiquity walks hand in hand with time and still retains its dignity, there is peace.

Whilst I was out exploring (and buying sausage for tea) Eric was prepping the boat ready for our trip down the big River Severn

We didn’t think our mud weights would cut it if we got into trouble on the Severn

We left the Avon at its confluence with the River Severn,

and as the river is now subject to a tidal flow, from now on all the locks are manned. Not only is the river big, but so are the locks.

Albert is a proper sea worthy barge, who was planning to continue onto the Severn Estuary

The scale of our surroundings certainly reminded us what a small cog we are in the grand scheme of things

You could build a marina inside Upper Lode Lock

We say this over and over again, we love the variety of waterways that we can cruise on, from some rather grotty backwaters of neglected canals, to picturesque rivers like the Avon and onto super highways like the Severn.

Poor Firecrest, we usually travel about 2.8 miles an hour today we reached 6, and could have gone faster

Going with the flow helped our journey time down to Gloucester. We made the 13 miles to Gloucester dock in about 4 hours.

A nice manageable sized lock to see us into the Historic Gloucester dock

Now, where shall we moor….

An exciting day

Glad we don’t meet these big boys on the canals

River Avon, from Stratford to Evesham

We bought a 2 week licence to cruise down the Avon. It’s a 42 mile stretch of wiggledy windy rural loveliness, lined with trees and vistas of farmland. And some villages with houses that wouldn’t be out of place gracing the Thame at Marlow or Windsor. Unfortunately for us, the opportunity for wild mooring is virtually non existent with all the official mooring is restricted to 48 hours. And back during the first fortnight of July, the amount of rainfall was making us wonder what had happened to summer. This mean we were at risk of being hit by red warnings for strong flow and high water levels. Needless to say at Stratford, the wildlife was proving noisier than the tourists- or was it just that they started earlier in the day.

Early morning on the Avon opposite the RSC

So we untied the ropes and set off. Holy Trinity Church has one of the stunning skylines in Stratford although when the sky is blue, the reflection on the river is equally as impressive.

Being a river with quite a flow means there is a need for some strong bridges. Sometimes it’s not always clear which archway has been cleared for navigation, the willow tree certainly hadn’t been trimmed so Eric was left guessing which arch to head for

Most of the locks on the Avon are nice wide doubles, but Robert Aickman’s new lock holds 3 narrowboats. Robert Aickman was instrumental in maintaining and preserving the canal network in particular reopening the South Stratford canal and the Avon Navigation. Protocol says you always leave your exit gates open when leaving the lock which makes the locks easier to work.

Most of the available mooring on the Avon is on the locking channels that bypass the weirs. At the Offenham mooring we were treated to several low flying military planes passing by.

We are always intrigued by this structure at Offenham, but it transpires it is simply a monument built by Eric Prichard who was involved with building the locks and weirs.

We were pleased to see blue sky when we woke, but the flow on the river was still very lively. The warning boards, below the lock, weren’t clear, and our impression is that they could be positioned more visibly and better maintained. Above the lock all looked calm, but as we exited, we realised we were now nudging into red but having set off we put on our life jackets and carried on.

Those weirs really add to the speed of the flow

We were confident the boat could handle the flow, it was lively but not scary. But I made the mistake of distracting Eric at the wrong moment. We were on a bend and the current had other ideas about which line we should take. Eric was a moment too late to correct his course. It’s debatable which of us came off worse, us or the overhanging tree. The tree broke a branch and we are now sporting a go faster stripe down the length of the boat.

Lessons learnt, we survived, I guess we could relate the error to skidding on an icy road and we were lucky just to sustain a scratch in the paintwork. Of course 5 minutes downstream the river straightened and you’d never have known how fast the current was. The moral here is NEVER underestimate the power of water. We’re not sure ice on the road was the cause of this car’s demise.

After our scary moment the rest of journey was a real pleasure. And we have to say we love river cruising

Nice mooring at Workman Gardens in Evesham.

Staying in Stratford

We downed a hearty breakfast to fuel us down the last 16 locks towards Stratford.

Fortunately they are all single locks and being a popular destination we met enough boats coming up as going down, some very helpful volockies, and some very pretty lock landings adopted by a local couple.

I think this is the best lockside garden we’ve seen

I have to confess we’re never sure how we’re going to feel arriving in such a busy tourist destination.

Generally we want to run a mile back to the tranquility of the countryside, but occassionally, we arrive just get a sense of, yes, let’s treat this as a holiday and be tourists, and enjoy the atmosphere. I think a lot depends on where we actually get a mooring.

The Stratford canal terminates at Bancroft Basin. The basin is in one of two remaining wharfs. The other was filled in in the 1930s and became Bancroft Gardens. It’s a hub of entertainment for all the visitors with buskers, icecream vendors, and peddlers all willing to lighten your purse.

In the mid 1800s however, I doubt it was quite so pretty. The area was heaving with commercial activity, 50 000 tonnes of coal passed through Statford each year. There were also glass and lead wharfs, a cooperage, a cider press, a skin yard and a timber yard all served by a tram way. Nowadays, Warwickshire can expect well over 6 million tourists per year and I think half of them come to take a ride on the trip boats that now operate from the basin.

Of course Statfords most famous face is the hurdy gurdy playing busker in the town centre.

He confessed to me that his wife was just glad to have him out of the house

closely followed by William Shakespeare.

And there are monuments all over the place

The fabulous Royal Shakespeare Company Theatre dominates the gardens and river. We chose to go to one of the fringe theatres, even closer to Firecrest than the RSC. The Attic, housed in the old wood yard at the end of the basin, we saw Noel Coward’s Private Lives, and thoroughly recommend this little theatre company to anyone passing through Stratford.

Mooring is restricted to 48 hours in the basin, and whilst we got one of the prime linear spots, most of the mooring is on pontoons, which aren’t quite long enough to make for the easiest of mooring venues. Although this is terminus for the Stratford canal, there is a lock which opens out onto the River Avon.

We bought our ANT licence, (£70 for 2 weeks) and spent another night on the River Avon

Leaving the lock and entering the River Avon

With everything in such easy walking distance we could easily have stayed another few nights in Stratford. Good fish and chips from the Kingfisher on Ely Street, worth the extra 10 minutes walk.

Makes a change from Canada Geese, but just as noisy

The New Plan A

It was a ridiculous sense of relief to have, having finally given up on the East Anglian Adventure. We were back on the Grand Union and had a plan, not one we were going to allocate to the second half of the alphabet, this is the New Plan A. We are now heading towards Gloucester and Sharpness. We will enjoy the journey and embrace all the new opportunities it throws at us. The DIY tweaks and improvements intended to be done whilst close to home (and Eric’s much missed workshop) will get tackled another time. We’re heading west, towards the sunset.

As we’d only just come down the Grand Union, we decided not to dwardle on this section of our journey. Although we did take time to pay hommage to our two service heros deep in thought at bridge 21. I dont know if they have official names but we call them Tim and Prue, always impeccably turned out, although missing a large glass of red today.

Tim and Prue marking the 80th anniversary of D Day at Bridge 21

We struck lucky at the bottom of the Buckby flight by meeting a lovely couple renovating an old boat. They had minimal boat handling experience but were happy to follow our routine.

Experienced or not it still makes double locks easier if you can share the load. As we gazed longingly at the lovely cottage a at Norton Junction a familiar face approached us, well familiar to me, unless he can magically see out of the TV not my face to him as it was Robbie Cummings from the Canal Diaries tv show.

We didn’t stop to exchange autographs although I thanked him for an entertaining show. The storm clouds were gathering so we opted for a good nights sleep before doing the Braunston tunnel and flight. As luck is now on our side we buddied up again for the locks into Braunston

And found a mooring before the next storm clouds hit

We’ve spent many an hour mooching around Braunston, it’s got history, culture and butcher who sells the Best Braunston Bangers.

However, we might be in good spirits but what had happened to summer.

Somewhere around Bridge 100, the meeting point for many marina dwellers over a weekend G&T

But when dark clouds amass, the only thing to do is get the knitting out and try a bit of reverse psychology. Having knitted a boat chicken for Firecrest,

Meet Nen the Hen, knitted in Northampton where the Nene is known as the Nen

It was time to finish a wooly jumper for me in case the weather never improved

But you know what they say, it only rains when you forget your umbrella. Let’s hope the weather warms up

And sure enough we woke to blue skies and the temperature soared.