Weston-upon-Trent to Stoke-upon-Trent

Wednesday 5th August 2009
We were woken by the boat being violently shaken. Alan shot out of bed, but it didn't look like a boat had gone past. The only possible reason we could think of was that someone had climbed onto the gunwale to get something from the roof.

"We have both kinds of music..." This list just amused me.

Being awake we ate breakfast, and set off in the drizzle again. We passed through the wide, flat-bottomed Trent valley, through small towns and working through short flights of locks. We have never had so much delay at locks. There were queues of three or four at every lock, and for every boat up there was one coming down.

As the day progressed we moved from overcast to blue skies and light cloud.

Row of cottages in Barlaston.

As we worked up the flight of very deep locks into Stoke we continued to have to wait a long time for every lock - so we made use of the time talking to the other boaters. We said that we were planning to moor at the summit, but we were warned off this as we were told that all the boats near top of the flight had had their ropes cut the previous night. The general consensus was that we should stay either at Westport Lake, or at the Tunnel mouth. However, one of the last boaters down said that they had heard that there were 'gipsies' causing problems at the tunnel mouth - so Westport Lake it would be.

Heading through Stoke there was little sign of the industrial heritage at first, although there were a couple of bottle kilns, sanitised, stuffed and mounted as part of a housing development. The further we got the more we could see the remains of old factories. Almost all abandoned, some displaying burned rafters.

The Eritruria Bone and Flint Mill

At the top of the flight we decided to walk up the small distance to the staircase locks at the beginning of the Caldon Canal - however, the locks have been so covered with white safety handrails that it is hard to see what they are. They look more like some water treatment plant.


Alan was quite upset by this example of H & S gone mad - is the entire canal network eventually going to be subjected to the white railing treatment? Are people only going to be able to be able to go boating when they take regular safety certificates?

Bottle Kiln

In a field of weeds a middle aged woman sat on the remaining brickwork of the factory that had stood there. A couple of cans stood on the brickwork by her, and arranged neatly, as if on a shelf, a pair of pale pink stilettos. She called out to ask the time, and though I can offer no reason, I felt wary. "Half past six", I called back.

A short distance on we passed a young fisherman, staring at the water, a half drunk bottle of Lambrusco on his lap.

Another bottle kiln.












The lake was an excellent choice - really beautiful and peaceful. We weren't even disturbed by the large population of Canada Geese.
(Sorry if there are any discontinuities in this post or the layout - it's been done on a very, very flaky connection!)

Miles: 18.5 , Locks 16
Total Miles: 162.3, Total Locks: 174