Granny Buttons

Wincham to Middlewich

Sunday 28th Sept
Wincham to Middlewich is lockless and without grandeur. Nevertheless the scenery is very varied and it is most charming in places.

Leave the hissing Lostock ICI Works behind and you will find great charm in the flashes and wooded reaches along the River Dane's valley.

The flashes come as a surprise after leaving behind the heavy industry. They are the product of subsidence from two hundred years of salt mining.

Mining, in this context, meant pumping fresh water underground and pulling out brine, evaporating it in open pans. In the 1950s British Waterways sank dozens of redundant boats here to clear their balance sheets, only to watch canal boat enthusiasts pull the wrecks up a few years later and rebuild them.

The flashes are now shallow, empty, pretty ponds lined with Sunday fishermen. A couple of old boats remain, jutting out of the water like sham ruins.

If I owned a flash I'd buy some leaky old boats as a job lot and sink them ceremonially to a background of the Water Music and fireworks. One of the boats on Croxton Flash resembles Tom Rolt's old 'Cressy' and it's a romantic notion to think one might someday find such a historic wreck to echo the Mary Rose in inland waterways importance.

After Broken Cross this was a quiet stretch until I reached the restricted-width Croxton Aqueduct, signalling that Granny Buttons is now back on the narrow canals. Middlewich has a 'Roman Festival' this weekend, and I was tempted to laugh at the claim that "The invasion by the Ermine Street Guards is sure to astound everyone". But the crowds coming off the festival and gongoozling at Big Lock seemed happy enough, and I'm slowly learning to stop sneering at well-meaning attempts to recreate history.

The Middlewich locks are of the type perceptively described in Pearson's as 'like piggy banks - slow to fill and quick to empty'. It's a good canal town - a boat hire base, a junction (complete with blind, narrow bridge - lookouts essential here) and a boatbuilder, Mick Sievewright, of whom I've heard nothing but kind comments around the cut.

I moored Granny above Kings Lock, opposite a stream of residential boats adjacent to the lime beds and salt works that make up what remains of the town's industry.

I asked a lady waiting at a bus stop about the town. Was it a nice place to live? "Used to be - until the gypsies came", she said. "I'd rather live in Winsford now."

One assumes she's talking about travelling ne'er-do-wells rather than the genuine thing. I do hope Granny is safe here, but I've learned to fear ignorant small-world locals rather than transients.

Expensive pump-out at Orchard Marina

Orchard Marina, an offline facility near Broken Cross, displays a big sign saying 'Pumpout £15'. I don't think it's compulsory to post public price signs on the canals, as with petrol stations, although advertising a bargain always brings in the punters. But £15? For a pump-out? I presume they are trying to scare away casual boaters. It worked with me, and I passed them by. This is clearly a Local marina for Local people.

Tow me the way to go home

I towed a boat for the first time today. A bemused bloke and his sweet but puzzled wife had just bought a boat from Anderton and were taking it home for the first time. A bouncey tupperware thing. It kept conking out and he kept running aground. They were preposterously ill-equipped - no boathook, no anchor, little else - but on the canals I don't suppose you need those things, and after all, he'd just pickd up the boat. But they had a bit of misfortune, and I was happy to help out.

I threw a tow rope and put my big engine forward, and they cannoned erratically from bank to bank before I got the hang of it. Or nearly did. I forgot to get his name, or the name of the boat. But here it is, my first-ever tow.

If you see this, mate, sorry I didn't remember your name or boat. Drop me a line and let me know if you got home ok, eh? After all, I dropped a line for you, and it was a pleasure to help out on my first ever tow. I'll need someone else's help myself one day, so it's good to have some credit in the bank.

Wincham Wharf and the Scareworks

Wincham Wharf would not be my ideal for a residential mooring. The site basks overnight in the floodlights and constant overnight whirring of the local ICI chemical works, one of several surrounding Northwich. They came here because of the canal and river, but the waterways have long since become an irrelevance, even a nuisance to them. And they seem to work around the clock to scare the boats away.

The Wharf (the boatyard) has a pub named after it, and The Wharf (the pub) is a charming warehouse conversion run with efficiency but no charisma whatsoever. No real ale - it's the sort of pub with sterile kegs and a flat, stodgy menu of comfort food and little freshness in the preparation. No salads - just a side decoration of vegetation on my cheese & broccoli bake, the closest thing I could find to health and variety on a dull, homely menu.

A good source of secondhand and new boats from Harral Brokerage and Olympus Narrowboats, though, and the hugest number of steel boats on hard standing that I've ever seen.

Singing for my supper

It was only right to accept an invitation to the end-of-season party at Acton Cruising Club. I was surprised at the warm cameraderie of the clubhouse on Saturday night, and surprised myself when I took a turn at the karaoke microphone. Most people probably struggle within themselves over whether or not to make a fool of themselves in public. The wallflower in me had the upper hand in the past, and I've always been too bashful to try. But a pleasant and filling hotpot supper lulled my shyness, and my vanity showed thru.

I was told my 'They're coming to take me away, ha ha' routine was quite the showstopper of the season, but they didn't know I've been practising the lunacy all my life. I took it as a compliment.

Me, I thought the highspot of the night was the Commodore's awards ceremony. He summoned about half a dozen of the more notorious members with lugubrious wit, and each received a gilten trophy of some tat or other.

'You're boring'. he told one. 'You're incompetent', another heard. And all took their prizes in good heart. A shame that I had to return to the boat alone at midnight.

Stop Me And Buy One

From their narrowboat Camberwell Beauty, Giles Byford and Linda Parkinson (not to mention the dog) make, modify and repair cratches and cruiser covers, and on a summer evening you can see Giles through the hatch, hammering away on his sewing machine. They call themselves 'Camberwell Covers'.

Boaters often need running repairs, and it's hard to find a boatyard that has the time at short notice. There ought to be a list of boat-based businesses - fender-makers, coal merchants, diesel sellers, the decorative ware and others - although it's hard to think how one might know if there's one around the next corner.

My cratch cover has been developing a tear, slowly, for several weeks, and I didn't know when I could get it repaired on this long odyssey. So when we passed Camberwell Beauty tonight, close to Anderton Marina, I stopped for a quick running repair, and they had my cratch cover off, sewn up and back on again in ten minutes. Fee: £3, and they courteously declined the £2 tip I offered on top.

They were also ready with some useful advice on replacing and choosing good cratch covers, and had special praise for AJ Covers in Braunston. "And Camberwell Beauty?" I asked. "Yes, that goes without saying", Giles answered modestly. He pointed out the strong points of a good cratch cover, and I departed much wiser than when I arrived and not much lighter in the pocket.

Giles and Jill have a delightful sign panel: Hobbes the tiger leaping in a slinky arc towards Rosie and Jim, the ragdoll pair both just visible on the bottom of the panel and both visibly terrified. (Rosie & Jim, not Giles & Jill)

Farewell to the Weaver

Sat Sept 27th - Acton Bridge to Wincham via Anderton.
Passengers: Ray Edwards and Bramble the big black squeaky labrador.

Acton Bridge Cruising Club was near-deserted on Saturday afternoon, it being the last club cruise of the year, and half the mooring spaces appeared empty. When I phoned the Anderton Lift office I was told the lift was booked booked up for the rest of the day, and when we reached the lift we'd resigned ourselves to overnighting in the shadow of the lift, on the visitor moorings. As we turned to moor at 4pm, we met the long, formidable convoy of the club, returning from upstream.

Just as I was tying up, the white-shirted lift attendant approached, ushering me through. He told us the boats booked for that slot had turned up early and been sent up straight away - so the Lift was now vacant. For all their helpfulness and flexibility, I have to say, 'Lift Attendant' must be the most understand job-title on the waterways!

I was relieved to get through straight away and Ray was delighted to be steering, but Bramble had to be shut inside the boat for safety, whereupon she squeaked incessantly through the ten-minute rise. The Lift is an extraordinary sight, as spectacular inside as out, and any boat passing through the lift must feature on hundreds of snaps and videos. "I've got video of you all the way up", said one breathless, smiling tourist who had run up to film us as we passed under the bridge from the holding pen.

Uneventful trip to Wincham, punctuated by a stop at Camberwell Beauty for a cratch repair, and a long run for myself and Bramble along an angler-strewn towpath through Marbury Country Park. The sylvan lining to this stretch hides a vertiginous drop in places - this stretch of the Trent and Mersey is quite the little contour canal. The last half-mile to Wincham is largely lined in concrete, a legacy of the rerouting of the canal in the 1950s following severed subsidence from salt mining. We moored at 6pm and prepared for the Club Karaoke evening. Of which more later.

Jenny Wren walks the towpath

I've been reading Blue Tapestry, Vera Laughton Mathews' memoir of her time spent creating and commanding the modern WRNS (Wrens) service during WW2. In it she records the happiest time of her life, in the 1930s, when once a week every year she and her husband would hike the countryside:

We went walking, rucksack on back, and putting up where our feet and map led us, sometimes at a bargee's waterside inn, sometimes at a ploughman's cottage...
But most of all we walked the inland waterways; the canal towpaths were our specials, and once we started on them we never wanted to go anywhere else. There is a beauty about canals which is all their own; one drops down from the centre of a busy town and straightaway is in a world apart, lovely and peaceful and remote.
Canals are never really far from human life, but they are seemingly secret and once can walk all day without seeing a human being, though there are cows in the fields and, behind a little pink stone bridge with tufts of forget-me-nots, a large sow surrounded by an enchanting family being brought up to behave like pigs...
These walks were some of the happiest times of my life, and when the ghosts close in, I go to the memory of them for comfort.

She lived until 1959, although her memoir stops at 1946. Was she a part of the IWA's early years? With her naval background, strong 'establishment' connections and rebellious streak (a suffragette and determined promoter of women's rights) she might seem a candidate for supporting it strongly.

INEOS Fluor - the Weaver plant at Weston

This just in from the PR manager at the big plant at the Weston end of the Weaver.

INEOS Fluor and INEOS Chlor, which respectively manufacture fluorine and chlorine-based chemicals at the Runcorn site, produce a range of speciality chemicals, from refrigerants which are in a third of the world’s cars to propellants for 80% of the world’s CFC-free metered-dose inhalers for asthma sufferers. A new venture just launched is the Xentia brand, which produces flavours and fragrances including vanilla, clove, cardamom, orange and lemon as well as many others for use in the food and beverage industry.

INEOS Fluor describes the plant as "the first commercial scale HFC 134a plant in the world". HFC 134a is (as any fule kno) the acceptable replacement for those villainous old 'anti-Kyoto' CFCs. Good to know Britain still leads in something industrial.

The Weaver's variety

Frodsham Cut – Weston Docks – back to Acton Bridge.

The Weaver is a glorious river, and I can’t imagine finer weather to enjoy it in. It was semi-tropical (mid-September!) with a pure, cloudless day, the dark blue sky being streaked with jet trails. Below the bosky reaches the navigation is an artificial cut right down to Weston Docks. At the start of the cut, the river was thick with scullers from the Runcorn Rowing Club, most of them being lithe lovelies in scanty clothes. I adore the site of women taking exercis

From the bosky upper reaches of the Weaver, the Frodsham cut takes a turn into the back passage of Runcorn. And much of the remaining two or three miles is taken up by a massive chemical works. Far from being industrially dull, I found it magnificently interesting. Could this be the glorious weather? Almost everything looks good on a perfect day, but the works are endlessly fascinating, with miles of piping, much of it puffing steam mysteriously in places, and most of it gleaming or colourful. The canal guides say that these are ICI polymer works, but it appears they actually belong to INEOS Fluor, and manufacture HFC 134a, a modern 'non-greenhouse' refrigerant that is a replacement for CFCs.

I went right down to Weston Docks. They might be mostly empty and surrounded by razor wire, but the area seemed ripe for development. I fell in to chatting with a local resident who complained that all the local footpaths and rights of way were slowly (and illegally, he said) being blocked off, and the local residents were getting angry about this. The old boaters’ church, smoke-grimed and boarded up, was looking sorry for itself. I took a photo of it with an EasyJet aircraft making its descent to the Lennon airport. While I was there, three EasyJets flew in. Strewth. The future of aviation is bright and orange. And so it is of Weston Docks. One day, big things will be made here. I do hope the local residents aren’t squeezed out.

It was a trouble-free couple of hours back to Acton, where I’d arranged to leave Granny at the local boat club. I was nervous about breasting up with the shiny narrowboat ‘Eternity’ (name inspired by the wait for Steve Hudson to finish it), but the club members couldn’t have given me a kindlier reception – even a free lift back to my car from members Patricia and Michael of narrowboat Ambleside.

As I go round this beautiful country, I find no warmer reception than in the boat clubs. The only downside is that one's schedule can go up in smoke in order to accept hospitality at their parties and special gatherings. And so it is on this occasion. Acton has a karaoke evening in a couple of weeks, and Chris and Dave extended me an invitation to sing myself silly. I’m planning to leave that morning , but would hate to run out without contributing to the social life of the club in some way.

Exploring the Weaver

Saturday 13th Sept: Anderton Marina – Anderton Boat Lift – Vale Royal – Northwich – Acton Bridge – Dutton Lock.

Anderton Marina was there when I needed it, but for the cruising boater it’s a rip-off. £7 a day (note: not ‘night’ – an overnight stay counts as two chargeable days!)
But they were certainly friendly enough. The Boat Lift was quiet today apparently. Only one boat prebooked, and I was able to get down at 10.04 without booking. (Why 4 mins past the hour?)

Cruised up to Vale Royal Locks and turn around just below the lock, annoying a bunch of irritated anglers. I fear that by the time the locks are fixed, the anglers will have squatter’s riparian rights and will block the river permanently.

At Hunts Lock we were welcomed by two very friendly lockkeepers, who were just as matey going up as coming down. Golly, the keepers in the river are sociable. After a long lunch in Northwich I made a dash downriver – passing through Saltersford and Dutton Locks where both keepers were happy to chat, something I don’t see in other major river locks.

The river below Dutton has some magnificent reaches, with woods coming down to the waters edge. I moored up in a field surrounded by woods on three sides, along with other boats that spotted the location. It's not official - indeed, it might be impermissible - but this hollow makes for a magnificent setting, and I couldn't resist running a large amount of film onn a wonderful sunset. It’s unnamed on the canal guides, but you can’t miss it – your boots will inevitably step in some of the huge amounts of cow dung in the field. No cows around overnight, but I notice they appeared later the following the day.

Acton Cruising Club

Had a very friendly reception from the Acton Bridge Cruising Club, who seem willing to make room for my 60ft, even though they are pretty full. Sounds like a great place to stop for a fortnight. I wonder if I should give a paper donation to club funds, or bring it along in bottles? I'm told the Weaver is much less prone to dramatic floods than the Soar or Nene, and that puts me at ease. Anderton Lift has only one booking for Saturday so far, so that's a fiver to start with to buy the club a drink.

Extortion at Anderton Marina

Don’t confuse Barnton Public Moorings, near Saltersford locks on the River Weaver, with the (also delightful) 48 hr moorings on the T&M canal, which is between Barton and Saltersford tunnels just uphill. But you will easily on the map, because the river and canal almost touch at this spot. Give or take fifty feet in height, and fifty yards on the ground.

From Barnton moorings it’s half an hour’s cruise back to the Anderton Boat Lift and you can give your engine a vigorous workout in the absence of any irritable anglers or moored boats. I found that going upstream it’s a blind corner to the left, and you have to be careful of any boats coming out of the Lift.

Going up in the lift is a bit rougher than coming down. The caissons rattle a bit and my nerves were more on edge. We passed the Edwin Clark boat on its way down, and I felt like a duellist, matching my camera to those of the tourists leaning out of their glassy windows. It was a stunningly clear day, with the blue sky streaked with jetstream entrails - my favourite sky, I could exhaust a whole film on a big entrail-laden sky - but although there was no rain, the water dripped liberally on me from the upper caisson, blown by a chilly Easterly breeze.

Once at the top I went hunting for moorings. There are no public moorings over 48 hrs in Anderton, and the new marina by ‘Travelreign’ has no office and no response to the phone on Sunday. I ended up by paying an extortionate almost-£50 at Anderton Marina, the local Alvechurch hire base. This really is a rip-off. Office manager Christine was friendly, but firm about the price.

I then had to return to Preston Brook to collect my car. Despite Anderton's status as a tourist destination there is little in the way of public transport there on a Sunday afternoon, and no local taxis available for a couple of hours or more. I rang Claymoore to ask Derek Simpson if he’d keep the gate open for me, and to my surprise he said he’d come and fetch me himself. It was only ten minutes drive, he said. And he did come in ten minutes, and refused any payment. I felt doubly grateful to Claymoore. His service really does go the extra mile. And nine more by car!

In the car he told stories of his regular hirers, including one Dutch couple who’ve been coming to him yearly for two decades. That sounds more like habit than loyalty! I seem to remember an article in WWW about four years ago that they wrote about cruising the Weaver in a Claymoore boat. Getting onto the Weaver by the Machester Ship Canal showed incredible fortitude, involving jumping through the hoops and negotiations of the MSC jobsworths. For jobsworths is what they sound like, if Derek’s experiences are valid.

Granny is safe for the week, but at a hell of a cost. Memo: write to Alvechurch telling them that almost seven pounds a day is barely downstream of extortion!

To the Anderton Lift

Left Claymoore Navigation mid-morning, very happy with their work and their bill.

Preston Brook Tunnel is the first evidence that I’m back on the narrow canal network, and it feels good to return. The Bridgewater canal nominally ends just a few yards inside. The tunnel is mid-length – just 1200 yards or so – and one can see to the other end, but it’s unmanned and not quite needless of regulation, so operates on a strict hourly timetable.

Dutton stop-lock, at the other end, showed the main evidence of the lowered water level along the Bridgewater. Vandals opened sluices at Pomona lock, some twenty-odd miles away, last week, and the Bridgewater’s stock thundered into the Manchester Ship Canal for several hours before it was detected. The water level is clearly down, but surely not quite to the full foot claimed. Seemed just a few inches to me.

Dutton boatyard seems an idyllic place to practice boat restoration and repair, the trade of Tim Leech. The old dry dock was apparently the maintenance yard for the tunnel’s steam tugs, and built after the Trent & Mersey was taken over by a railway company. It still bears the old ‘railway architecture’ roof familiar in so many pre-Beeching rural stations

The countryside to Anderton is delightful in places. It skirts the Weaver valley for several miles, and the river below darts into view several times. The next tunnel is Saltersford, followed quickly by Barnton. Both must have been very early tunnels, designed before the plumbline or ruler were invented, because they are far from straight. Indeed, it’s impossible to see through Saltersford tunnel, despite it being a scant quarter-mile long. Halfway through you come to a pronounced bend, and it really takes you by surprise. Canal tunnels are not supposed to have kinks. It caused me problems, so heaven knows what the beginners who hire from the Black Prince base nearby are supposed to think. Barnton is less tricky to negotiate, but still not ruler-straight.

I last came to Anderton a couple of years back, after my last stay at Claymoore. It’s grown. The lift itself looks almost new, and there’s a gunmetal-grey ‘shed-vernacular’ visitor centre that is as soulless as the Lift is lifelike. I casually asked how long one had to book ahead, and was startled to hear they had a descent free at 5pm. I changed my plans immediately, and nipped in with Water Navigator, a 60ftr from Nantwich. Pictured here are either Linda & Mike Betteley, or Glyn & Gwenda Moss (don't ask me which couple), Water Navigator's co-owners.

The descent was imperceptible and smooth, after a couple of clanks, and you hardly notice the physical sensation. I was taken aback that the rain poured copiously and the lift - deceptively - does not have a roof. Once at the bottom we made fast progress to Barnton Moorings, some new, manicured facilities a couple of miles downstream. This is a very pleasant place to spend a night on the Weaver, quiet and isolated and secure. There are no pubs nearby, but I solved that by putting on my running shoes and trotting down to Acton Swing Bridge, a further couple of miles downstream. The Weaver here is an artificial cut, although it doesn't look it, and the water flow is very gentle if at all.