Holiday Diary 

Dear Diary,

We started our holiday today which will take us down onto the Llangollen canal to Trevor, returning to Middlewich the week after for the Folk and Boat Festival.

Today we travelled from Boothstown to Stockton Heath along the Bridgewater canal. It took us about eight hours including a stop for lunch and water and we are now moored near the London Bridge pub which we will no doubt be paying a visit to later. Our friend Chris has also travelled here today and he is going to travel down to Middlewich to meet up with us for the festival. The Bridgewater is lovely deep and wide canal and Mervyn motors on at a lovely pace when the bottom is further away from the top as they say, but with no locks or swing bridges it can seem uneventful. However, there is no shortage of excitement over the next week or so with many tunnels, locks and the massive Pontcysyllte Aqueduct to look forward to! There was plenty to photograph along the way so below is a selection from the day...

Through Worsley water has an orange tint due to the iron ore from the mines

The beautiful Worsley Packet House and the short arm that leads to the mines in Worsley Delph

Coming into Monton

 

The rather delightful 'lighthouse'!

Someone's a fan

The derelict buildings at Patricroft where the Royal Ordnance Factory once was and where Mr F served his time

It is always great to cross Barton Bridge or the 'stream in the sky' over the Manchester ship canal. It is the first and only swing aqueduct in the world is considered a major feat of Victorian civil engineering. Designed by Sir Edward Leader Williams and built by Andrew Handyside of Derby it opened in 1894

Old and new side by side

There are still a few industrial buildings left but unfortunately most are in a state of disrepair

There are plenty of lovely boats moored along the way

As well as some 'interesting' garden features

See, lovely boat...

Interesting garden feature!

Lovely boat...you get the picture

This boat is really interesting as it is an original converted working boat, eight were built at Yarwoods in Northwich and fitted with Gardner engines, Stork is only one of three to still have them. They were all named after birds, Swan, Swift, Swallow, Stork, Skylark, Seagull, Snipe and Starling and mainly carried chemicals around Manchester until the fleet stopped trading in 1956.

Lymm is a pretty canal village

Longford Canal Services fuel boat Ariel passing us just before arriving at Stockton Heath