Just outside of Barlaston, and on the way in to Stoke On Trent, I passed the World of Wedgwood experience building and factory. The company Wedgwood was established in 1759 by Josiah Wedgwood and here on this site, there is a museum which I believe is free, and also there is a factory tour but this however, requires payment of a fee.
Here I am on a rainy morning preparing the Trentham lock (10’6″ 3.2m), with my boat waiting patiently on the lock landing. As I was going uphill, this normally entails draining the lock so I can take my boat in, unless there is a boat coming down the lock, of course.
From here on in, the landscape of Stoke changes dramatically, especially from the canal point of view. All the people I met were friendly and chatty. In fact there was a lady who tried to talk her way on to the boat as she didn’t want to go back to work for the afternoon.
How about this for a canal boat? I think that this would be pretty much static as it doesn’t look to be that practrical for cruising the waterways. It appears to be looked after though as the hull paintwork looks to be in very good nick.
Here is a short montage of part of my passage through Stoke. I have made sure that there are captions on each photo. I made friends with another solo boater and we decided it would be a good idea to help eachother up the locks.
The photo below is looking back to the Etruria Junction and the left fork is the Caldon Canal, which leads to Leek and Froghall. The right fork is the Trent & Mersey Canal, and is where I have just come from, that lock being the last and the top lock of the Stoke flight.
Someone’s canal side bar. I have seen quite a few of these on my travels and some of them are top notch. Personally, not my thing as I hardly drink, but if you do enjoy a few bevy’s and are always entertaining, this could be right up you street, or canal.
I was intending to visit the Middleport Pottery and Museum but unfortunately when I got there, there were no moorings available as they only had space for about 3 boats, at a squeeze. I was a little dissappointed, but I vowed that I would return by car sometime soon. I was so dismayed, that I forgot to take a photo of the Middleport Pottery, but I managed to take these couple of photos below of the buildings next door that were undergoing renovation. I should stop getting irritated so much and then I wouldn’t forget to take photos.
Finally, after passing through Stoke On Trent, I came to Westport Lake where I was intending to moor for the night. Again, I did not take any photos as I could not reliably moor here due to the mooring rings being at odd spacing making tying up awkward. After trying for 10 minutes or more, I became irritated and moved on to the Harecastle Tunnel moorings, where I spotted my lock buddy from earlier.
The colour of the water is caused by iron oxide from the tunnel.
The below photo is looking back towards my boat which is hidden by the foliage. I went back to the boat after taking this shot, and I couldn’t get in as I had lost my keys. I retraced my steps and found them lying on the grass. After a couple of weeks and looking at these photos, I suddenly realised they are in this photo that I took. Can you spot them? They have a cork ball key fob attached.
I keep finding that I appear to be missing photos. I definitely took photos of the old tunnel but they cannot be found anywhere. Very strange. If I find them, I’ll make another post for them.
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