Anderton

The day started with a fine drizzle but cleared later to leave us with a generally fine and often warm day. We moored overnight close to the church of St John the Evangelist, parish church of Higher Walton. We understand that it was built as an estate church in the middle of the nineteenth century, together with the model village, to provide for the workers on the estate of one of the founders of Greenalls Brewery. The founder must have either had grand ideas about the future for the 'Diocese' of Walton (the church is almost cathedral sized) or anticipated that his workers would have very large families!

Estate Housing, Higher Walton

Christine had contacted the parish priest by email to check the service time, having with difficulty found some clue as to the time of a service at this church. This, as other churches in the area have not registered their details on www.achurchnearyou.com or have confusing, out-of-date websites (for this church, the website had not been updated in the past two years) However, Walton church was all of three or four minutes walk from the boat! The parish seems to be largely unpopulated, considerable portions are areas around the ship canal and River Mersey with only the very small village of (Higher) Walton. Nevertheless there was a congregation of around 40 with a good spread in age including a number of children.

Higher Walton Parish Church

The service was rather long, largely the result of a half hour sermon which could well have done with some drastic sub editor pruning! The points were well made but undue discursive supplementary material, which might have gone well in an academic paper, diluted the impact and made it harder to sustain concentration. The main point of the sermon was to emphasize the importance of lay involvement and leadership - unfortunately we had the impression that most of the opportunities for doing this liturgically in this church seemed to be currently overlooked. We were not made unwelcome but few made any effort to speak to us either before or afterwards.

Bridgewater Stop Plank Crane

We returned to the boat, changed and were off again by midday. Ahead lay the rest of the Bridgewater Canal to its junction with the Trent and Mersey Canal at Preston Brook. A signature feature of the Bridgewater are the frequent small cranes to lift stop planks into position in the case of a breach in the canal banks. Christine asked that we made sure that at least one of them appeared in the blog - so here it is!

We passed Daresbury Laboratory, once an important part of the country's investment into particle physics in the immediate post-war period. As the costs of fundamental research rose to almost astronomical scales (almost a pun on the basis that much of fundamental physics in recent times has been about the origins and mechanics of the universe) it became necessary to establish international collaborations, much of which is based at CERN. However, the laboratory is still the base for some research teams as well as diversifying into supporting a wider innovative community.

Preston Brook Junction

The junction at Preston Brook is with the other part of the Bridgewater that runs through to Runcorn which we visited last year. In fact the Trent and Mersey does not formally begine until the northern portral of the Preston Brook Tunnel.

Preston Brook Tunnel - South Portal

Just after the exit from the southern portal comes Dutton Stop Lock. Stop locks were used by canal companies to control the flow of water from one canal to the other. Water was one of their most important operating costs and any attempt to take water from a competitor by building a junction just a little bit lower would be strongly resisted.

Dutton Stop Lock

The northernmost part of the Trent and Mersey has extensive and seemingly unchecked reed and weed growth. Not only does this reduce the available width for boats, sometimes to single direction working, but creates unnecessary hazards as sightlines at bends and bridge holes are obscured. Several times we only saw an oncoming boat at the last moment. Together with a lot of moored boats, progress was not as simple as it could have been. (The above photo was taken just after Anderton a little later and is a bit unfair but gives some idea of the problems - we were too busy avoiding other boats to take a picture of the worst offenders!)

However, as we neared the two tunnels north of Anderton, the canal hugs the hillside overlooking the River Weaver and is more tree-lined. The tunnels were cut for sections where the lie of the land was just too steep to hold a canal.

Inside Saltersford Tunnel

All three tunnels are crooked and wide enough for only a single narrow boat with no passing. The first two tunnels have time limits on entry to control this situation although it is unclear why the third does not as it has more of a bend in it than the first! It is generally not possible to see both ends of Saltersford Tunnel at the same time.

Barnton Tunnel - South Portal

Upper Entrance to Anderton Lift

After completing Barnton Tunnel it was a short run to Anderton where we passed the famous boat lift without stopping this time (we had a trip down and up last year). We needed the usual services but at the station just after Anderton there was a queue of boats for the water points (the last in the line was rather frustrated by what seemed to be over-long stays by two other boats) Still, our main needs were for rubbish disposal (as we failed in Manchester) and the usual sani station stop. We can leave filling the water tank until tomorrow.



Northern End of New Section

A short final run took us to our planned overnight mooring area close to the village of Marston. Although it was a rather pleasant evening, alas we could not find a mobile phone signal and so this blog - and any emails - will have to wait until another time!

As the sun set, a full moon arose. (Mike's attempts at a photo were not spectacular!) Where we were moored was a half mile stretch that was cut in 1958 when the original line was affected by subsidence from the extensive local salt mining. The OS map appears to show the footpath and right of way along the original line but Mike could find no trace, with Keep Out signs almost as overgrown. The only indication we could see was the irregularity in the edges of the canal at the start of the section and that it is straighter than the rest of the canal in this area.

12.1 miles - 1 lock