After completing yesterday's blog, we walked across to the nearby church of Church Lawton for their evening service. (We noted how well their glazed porch doors look)
We joined a group of seven others around a table at the back of the church. They had decided to have a 'cafe church' - tea, coffee and biscuits. The service was well led by two Readers and afterwards we had an extensive chat with all of the group, some allowed us to take their photo!
The church retains its West Gallery, albeit with a later organ now installed. Ironically, kit too is now 'redundant' as the morning services are accompanied by a keyboard and other instruments from the front. The front area is simple and open, but cost £50,000 which they raised from local people is a remarkably short time. This scheme did involve removing a few of the front pews but they are keen to open up much more of the space by removing most of those that are left!
In talking about local places, we were told that Westport Lake was, as we sort of guessed, a former marl pit. One of the older ladies recalled a previous generation talking about skating on the frozen lake.
It is clearly a thriving and fiercely independent congregation despite having only 2000 people in the parish, almost none of which live adjacent to the church! The only centre of population is Lawton Gate, where the new Rector now lives (the diocese have sold the rectory where we parked our car some years ago) but is almost part of Alsager. Back then to enjoy our roast beef dinner which we had largely prepared earlier.
It was another grey day as we set off up the six locks of the Red Bull flight. A short while before we left, two boats passed us going up so we knew that both locks would be full and indeed they all were.
nb Emily Anne from Stroud does not really qualify for our Unusual Boats gallery but it does present a splendid sight. Hope they can reduce the height enough to pass through the tunnel! We later discovered that she is owned by Daniel Hutch and his parents - Daniel owns the Canal World Forum. Unbeknown to us, it was he who came up to set the locks before we moored, otherwise we might have had a different chat! At the time we could not see which boat he was with but he did say that it was its first outing this year and that they had to spend quite a bit of time before setting off fixing a number of pipe joints!
We paused briefly at Red Bull service yard to use the sani station before then moving on to moor just below the last lock. Mike walked to the nearby Tesco to top up our supplies whilst Christine assembled a new soup - the previous one had kept us going at lunch time for several days.
After completing the top lock we turned sharp right onto the Macclesfield Canal, passing over the line we had earlier come up.
The boatyard at the sharp corner before Poole Aqueduct seems to have been tidily mothballed as nothing seems to be happening other than a couple of workboats stored partly under cover. There are no signs for the services offered which we recall were there when we passed before.
Apart from the 12 lock flight at Bosley, the only other lock on the entire length of this canal is the stop lock at Hall Green, about a mile from the southern end. It looks as if there was once another lock immediately in front of the existing one. We have seen a suggestion, but no stronger than that, that both the separate canal companies built a lock here to control the flow of water as neither trusted the other to play fair! Water supply was the most important commodity for a canal company to own.
The mile markers on this canal are, we think, unique, certainly unusual. They are made from stone slabs, looking just like grave stones! The stone was soft making engraving them easier but in many cases it is not easy to decipher the inscriptions. We have also read that they had to be restored after the war as they had been hidden in order to confuse an invading army! There are also quarter mile markers in some places, slightly smaller and even harder to read.
. . . and here's one a little easier to read.
Towards lunch time rain arrived - very heavy rain and as Mike was looking for a suitable mooring, it was a deluge! His jacket was so wet that he had to change for the afternoon!
After setting off once more, we had a bright spell, with some blue skies and sunshine - for just under an hour!
Now this is not an unusual boat either but its name - Ferric the Red - certainly did amuse us. Most 'clever' names do not have this effect!
Passing through Congleton there are a couple of the characteristic Snake turnover bridges.
The Biddulph Branch of the North Staff Railway connected north of Congleton and a short distance away there was a canal interchange basin.
Some trees are beginning to look green but others have not yet really woken up from winter.
Inevitably dark clouds and then rain returned - gives a stark view of The Cloud - a well-known escarpment.
Just a few minutes away from the bottom of the Bosley flight we found a good bank for mooring - much of the Macclesfield is reputed to have shallow edges - so we pulled in for the night with a better view of The Cloud through the cabin window.
11.2 Miles - 7 Locks
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