Mike Stevens' UK Inland Waterways Pages

TRIP REPORTS : THE YEARS BETWEEN BOATS

THE FOUR COUNTIES RING ETC.

August 1983

Part 2 : The Leek Branch and south to Great Haywood

	Cheddleton flint mill
NB Vienna	Boiler	Kiln

We started at 06:33, still in very good weather, and stopped at Cheddleton Flint Mill for breakfast, sight-seeing & odds of shopping in the (rather poor) supermarket. At Hazelhurst junction we passed Pip Dunn's nb Princess moored up just before we turned onto the Leek Branch.

DENFORD & HAZELHURST	Denford lift bridge	Hazelhurst aqueduct
Hazelhurst junction	Top of the aqueduct	Looking back

Tunnel Pool	The branch was very attractive - like the Wendover plus woodlands. We could only go as far as Tunnel Pool, as the tunnel was closed for repairs, so we winded there and went back to Hazelhurst to join the main line.

We stopped for water at Park Lane wharf, Endon, after a long wait while Mabel & Forget-me-not took on 400 gallons, then had a good run to Etruria Junction and turned south on the Trent & Mersey. Stoke-on-Trent was a maze of motorways, which caused us to have a frantic search for a mooring that wasn't in the middle of one. We ended up at what we thought must have been Stoke-on-Trent wharf at 20:49 and 'phoned Peter to fix a rendezvous for next day.

Stockton Brook bottom lock			Planet lock	In Hanley	Bedford staircase
Etruria dry dock				In Stoke-on-Trent
	Etruscan bone mill

Stone

After a 06:52 start we were delayed in Meaford locks by a wally-boat draining a pound. We took on water part-way down Stone locks, then moored below the bottom lock. We went shopping in Stone: very good still (we'd last been there in 1976). We made our rendezvous with Peter in the Star (Bass) which was unchanged since our last visit in 1976.

We were off again in mid-afternoon. It was now raining. On the approach to Haywood, Wendy saw what might have been a black mink or some other mustelid - I thought it could be the right sort of area for otters. At Haywood itself we passed on to the Staffs & Worcs Canal and moored just past the aqueduct at 19:08.