Today we rode the bus into Stafford again to see the Ancient High House. Paula said the photo I published of it yesterday was unflattering, so here’s a different angle. Yes, that’s Paula in the foreground with a bucket. She has great plans for that bucket. The house was built by a rich wool merchant in 1595, and remained a family home until the early 20th century. King Charles I and Prince Rupert stayed there for three days at the…
Though I was born in Staffordshire, I’d never been to the county town, Stafford, until today. I have to say that everyone we met seems to be very nice. At the bus stop we got talking to an old waterman. These days he has his own canal boat and also does volunteer work for canal and river trust, but he got started as a kid leading the horse pulling a commercial boat, delivering coal from the mines on Cannock Chase…
This morning we cruised to Weston-upon-Trent and walked for half an hour to Amerton Farm, a combination B&B, farm shop, collection of craft shops, steam railway, gypsy fortune teller, and petting zoo. We made for the petting zoo. Paula was waylaid by the goats but I was questing for alpaca. As well as the alpacas and goats… … there were sheep… rabbits, guinea pigs, ponies, donkeys… … chickens… … and a couple of emaciated looking reindeer. However, Paula bonded most…
We took a short cruise this morning, less than half a mile, but we went down three locks, and stopped to fill the tank with diesel. We are now moored closer to the town center so we explored the main street. The town was having a “seaside” celebration with a sand pit, donkey rides, a small fun fair, and even a Punch and Judy show. Punch and Judy puppet shows date back to the 17th century. They have changed over…
We bid a fond farewell to the Potteries, past the Etruria Industrial Museum that is never open when we are there… … past the lurid street art… … past Jones and Shufflebottom, bathroom specialists… … and past the canal boat with parking for a scooter, and a roof garden. We returned to Stone, and spent the afternoon doing projects on the boat. We treated ourselves to dinner out in a nice local bistro. Portrait of a cow and a sheep…
This morning I headed out to The Potteries Museum. I’ve already written about this collection here and here, but there’s lots of other fun stuff there. Let’s look at some iron age, Roman, and Saxon gold before we get on to the pottery. The spitfire plane has been taken to bits for refurbishment, so let’s go upstairs to the china collection. Shakespeare’s drunks were always calling for a jug of sack. This is what it looked like. Also from the…
Just outside Stoke-on-Trent was the stately home of Trentham. The mansion was abandoned and partially demolished in 1912, when the toffs who lived there could not take the air and water pollution any more and moved to one of their other mansions. The poor sods working in the factories that were creating the pollution had no choice but to stay. The gardens, including an ornamental lake designed by Capability Brown, fell into disrepair over the course of the 20th century….
At one point there were four thousand bottle kilns like this around the Stoke area. Now there are 47 left, illegal to use since the clean air act of 1968, but given Grade II listed status to preserve them as a reminder of our past. We are moored right next the these two, and I can see them as I write, so I thought that was worth a rare selfie. A single firing of a bottle kiln released over fifty…
With the Froghall end of the Caldon canal closed we took the narrow, twisting, and overgrown Leek branch of the canal. We were rewarded with views of some lovely waterside houses and gardens… … and pretty woodland making navigation difficult. The Leek branch seems to specialize in sharp turns just as you are approaching narrow bridges, so in a couple of cases we did not so much glide through the bridge as clunk through. Sadly the canal no longer goes…
Though we are starting to get some rain again, the impact of the long, dry summer is still being felt on the canal system. The Canal and River Trust is being forced to shut down some canals due to lack of water. The Middlewich Branch is closed due to a massive breach in an embankment at the start of the year, and the Macclesfield Canal closes tomorrow due to lack of water. This means the Trent and Mersey is the…