Mike Stevens' UK Inland Waterways Pages

TRIP REPORTS : THE YEARS BETWEEN BOATS

BRUM, STOURBRIDGE & LLANGOLLEN

August 1989

Part 2 : Cheswardine to Trevor

After a 07:01 start we met a lot of traffic at all the locks, giving a pleasant but very slow day. We met some nice dogs and people, and it's not really a hardship to wait for a lock in dry weather in such lovely scenery. Somebody's story of the Audlem flight taking 6 hours on Sunday didn't sound too unlikely. At Audlem we tied up below lock 11 for a lunch stop, then continued to moor just before Nantwich aqueduct at 18:45. After we moored, Mike met somebody whose home base is at Kent Green, at what used to be Dyecraft's boatyard, from which we had hired a number of times in past years. We weren't surprised to learn that Frank Dye had retired a couple of years before, about a year after we'd last hired from him.

We had planned a shopping trip here and were at Safeway by 08:00 but it didn't open until 08:30. It also didn't seem as good as on our last visit. Ian found a specialist cheese shop, as he so often does! We set off at 09:53 and soon passed on to the Chester Canal section of the Shroppie, which we only followed a short way to Hurleston junction where we passed on to the Llangollen Canal (originally the Ellesmere Canal). We thought Hurleston a very nice flight of locks. We watered above Hurleston top lock at a very slow tap. We found that the locks on the Ellesmere were, generally speaking, very well-maintained but because the canal is used for water supply they have very fierce by-washes than can be disconcerting when entering a lock from below. There were many species of wild flowers we'd not seen on other parts of the trip. Above Grindley Brook locks we decided to call it a day at 18:05.

Despite wet & gusty weather, we set off at 06:00, to stop for breakfast between bridges 41 & 42. We were now in lovely, often forested, country. Many of the lift bridges were operated by very positive granny gear. At Ellesmere junction we turned off onto the Arm to Ellesmere basin but found it too crowded there to stop, so we winded & carried on. At Frankton junction we saw the top of the locks leading to the Montgomery and decided to stop and look at them on our return trip if time allowed. We took on water at Maestermyn Marine.

We had a very slow run (for which we invented the name "hearse-race" behind a Heritage (formerly Dyecraft) hire-boat, Morton, before and through Chirk tunnel, but they stopped before Pontcysyllte, where the aqueduct is every bit as inspiring as the books say. We noted that many of the pubs along this stretch offer food. We crossed the aqueduct and moored at 19:44 at Trevor wharf (one of the original Anglo-Welsh bases) on the Ruabon arm which had originally been intended as the start of a line across the hills to the Dee at Chester.