Diversion Starts Here

We are leving Middlewich today and heading south on our way to Burnley!
Because of the breach in the canal north of here we have to make a diversion up inot the Peak district and down into Manchester before picking up our original route at Waters Meeting, west of Manchester.
An additional distance of 
21 miles and 82 locks

WADIHS Weekend - part 2

Salt has been an important source of trade in Cheshire for centuries -it was first discovered, even before the Roman occupation,  in brine springs known in Cheshire as wild brine.  The water from these was boiled until a residue of salt was achieved. In Nantwich there is still a brine swimming pool  (claimed to be the only one in Britain)   It is open-air but heated.  It is closed in the winter and the brine is renewed from the spring each spring. How appropriate.

Rock salt, however, was discovered by accident in 1670 when a local dynasty at Marbury near Northwich were looking for coal. It was mined extensively around Northwich and Winsford but scant attention was paid to the consequences of water dissolving underground salt deposits.  The area is now pock-marked with flashes as a result of mines collapsing.

When salt is extracted from underground by dissolving it and pumping out the brine it is impossible to know where it has come from and Northwich in particular has suffered considerably from subsidence caused by such processes. Following the collapse pictured here the Brine Subsidence Compensation fund was established and is still in existence.
Buildings erected after this date were built with a timber frame equipped with jacking points.   In the event of subsidence the building could be jacked up and wedged into position.
The building here must be rare in that the first floor is older than the ground floor.

After jacking it up, a whole new floor was built underneath.

The Bridge Inn used to be next to the Town Bridge.  In the 19th century it was jacked up and moved 185ft to its new location: it weighed 55 tons.

 

The same principle has been applied more recently using steel girders to form a rigid foundation to hold the house together. In the event of subsidence the house should not collapse but tip like a Lego model.



This area between Chester and Wrexham was also mined for coal, iron ore and lead although all activity has ceased long ago.

At Gresford the mining disaster of 1934 in  which 266 miners died was only one factor in the decline of these industries.






A memorial to those men now stands on the site of the colliery













  
Nearby at Bersham was the iron works where John Iron Mad Wilkinson perfected his revolutionary technique of boring out canons from solid iron.
These proved their accuracy in the American War of Independance.


In later years the iron was put to more mundane uses.


At the Minera lead processing plant much of the original equipment has been preserved or restored.

This is an open-access site with an informations centre open at certain times.  Walking around amongst the machinery an  impression of how the processes were carried out is much clearer than looking at books.

This contraption is effectively a large sieve in a bath of water.  By bumping the sieve up and down by means of the arms small lumps of lead ore could be separated from the other rock due to its considerable weight.This was known as a Jig and the operator was a Jigger.
On our way back at the end of a very busy day some of us made a detour to Chester as we remembered passing some interesting industrial buildings near the canal as we left there by boat.






A mill - now converted to offices....

....but which used to look like this.......

......A cylindrical water tower currently being restored......

.....a Napoleonic lead shot tower also being restored........













......and a row of cottages which face the canal. This is unusual as they generally face away from the canal.



What a weekend!

Canal Boats to Leave Aylesbury

It is almost a decade since BW sold the canal basin site in Aylesbury to the local council - AVDC.  Aylesbury Canal Society who lease the basin and have been responsible over many decades for the survival of the six-mile arm are being moved out.  There has been so much procrastination on the part of AVDC I had serious dooubts of their intention.  It looked at one time as thought the ACS lease would expire before the deal was settled.
I am happy, therefore, to be proved wrong.
All the papers are signed and the money to build a new marina on Circus Field, a mile out of town, is with the solicitors.



At a previous EGM the canal society displayed this plan and illustrations of the marina.


It will defintely be much better equipped and laid out than the current facilities butcannot overcome the fact that it is a mile from the town and will in due course be surrounded by housing.

The basin in the town is being redeveloped with the theatre already open and Waitrose and Travelodge arriving soon.

Present mooring arrangements are far from ideal

Undoubtedly these will attract visitors to the canal, many of whom hardly know it is there at present.  But why, oh why, are the boats being moved out?  Canals were made for boats and that is what visitors expect to see.

WADIHS Weekend - part 1

Watford and District Industrial History Society ,of which I have been a member for over 30 years, organise a study weekend once a year.  This year the subject was the mining industries around Chester and Wrexham.
As a pre-cursor to the weekend some of us visited Hooton Park Airfield. Vauxhall built their  Ellesmere Port factory on the site of the former WWI and WWII airfield in 1962. 
We were there to see the hangers built in 1917 using the lightweight wooden roof construction developed in Belfast - called, unsurprisingly, Belfast Trusses.  There are a few examples of these extant.    We were guests of The Griffin Trust who used to run the popular air shows at Hooton Park but is now struggling to keep afloat. 

As often happens, the involvement of English Heritage in the preservation of these buildings resulted in delays during which the structures deteriorated: in fact one hanger has now collapsed.

On Saturday morning we went for a ride on the Anderton Lift. This cathedral of the waterways was the first such structure when it was built in 1875.  The caissons transfer boats from the River Weaver up to the Trent & Mersey Canal and vice-versa.  It was originally hydraulic powered but corrosion of the cast iron components caused problems and it was converted to electric power in 1908.  About 70 years later it was declared unsafe and closed once again.  This time a public appeal was launched and with Heritage Lottery Fund assistance it was converted back to hydraulic power and reopened in 2002. It now uses hydraulic fluid to avoid the corrosion risk of the salty River Weaver .

On our way to Anderton we arranged to visit Walk Mill.  







This ex fulling watermill has been rebuilt to grind flour from wheat grown in the fields around it. They also make and sell bread and have a lovely tea room serving cakes etc baked with their flour.

The machinery was acquired from various mills around the country which were in the process of being converted to houses

 The undershot water wheel, on the other hand, had to be built specially.

 

Being in the watermill frame of mind it was not surprising that we found two redundant mills opposite each other on our way  to Walk Mill.

 

And this one had two waterwheels

Heading North by the Scenic Route

"You are heading north by the scenic route"
Thus I was greeted by Richard on nb Cartref  (a Cutweb member) this  morning as we moored in Nantwich: According to whom Gecko is famous on the canals.  Kind words but hardiy accurate.
After a very busy weekend around Chester and Wrexham with WADIHS we left Christleton yesterday morning and headed south. We travelled two hours before meeting another boat and that occurred at a bridge. C'est la vie.! We are booked in to Reedley Marina in Burnley for the winter but due to the breach in the Trent & Mersey canal north of Middlewich we will be taking a much longer route and arriving later than planned. Yes, I am aware that we should have turned left at Barbridge but she who must be obeyed wants to use the launderette here and I have to empty the toilet.  There are no services at Middlewich and we are stopping there for Kings Lock to do a nose job on Gecko: the ring to which the front fender  was attached has rusted through and needs replacing. Gecko spent a couple of weeks there back in August  whilst we had another radiator fitted to the central heating system and we went to look after the grandchildren. The boat should feel at home there but I hope she was not traumatised by having all the solar-powered lights stolen during that visit.
The effect of this breach on our route is this:

Original route to Waters meeting - 38 miles & 5 locks

New route - 59 miles & 87 locks

Scenic it may be, but hard work it will definitely be
Whichever way we go we have a further 59 miles and 36 locks to negotiate

Tin Tabernacle For Sale

Back in July I wrote about the tin tabernacle at Hassell Green.
If you are looking for a weekend cottage in north Wales then why not consider this property?

A Great Opportunity for Tesco

Tesco  has just reported a fall in profits for the first time in about 20 years.  Much of the problem has been their ventures overseas.  They recently withdrew from Japan and I  prdict they will have to retreat from USA in the not too distant future. In the UK they are losing market share to Sainsbury amongst others. At this point I ask you to read my post of August 25.
During the olympics supermarkets in England were given a temporary extension to the Sunday shopping hours.

I took these pictures at 6pm on a Sunday during this period of extended shopping hours.











The store is a large Tesco  which was open 24hours/day.

I think they demonstrate that there is no demand for longer hours on Sunday.












This is your opportunity, Tesco - close your supermarkets on Sundays and reduce your UK overheads.

Take the lead and when the others follow we can get our Sundays back.

Excitment in Paris

There is no need to pay for entertainment in Paris as we found out one day recently.


As we walked down Le Basin de la Villette the Pompiers demonstrated their extending ladder and courage in climbing this erection






We then caught a bus to Place d'Italie where we sat at a pavement cafe and sipped our jus d'abricot and watched the police remove illegally parked cars.

Sometimes two at a time.











After a light lunch we waked up to Les Invalides where we were greeted by a military band.

I could get used to this!



And finally we took a bus down to the Parc Andre Citoen where the Air Ambulance service put on a display at the nearby Georges Pompidou Hospital.

Christleton Water Point

Many boaters avoid mooring in city centres and so Christleton on the outskirts of Chester is always a popular mooring as the Park & Ride bus runs frequently and non-stop from there. It also benefits from two pubs - The Cheshire Cat and a Harvester which I forget the name of. Unfortunately there are no other boating facilities.


Correction: there is a water point but it is inaccessible due to bank collapse.












The only way to use the tap is to wait in the bridge hole and hold the boat on ropes as there is nothing to tie to.

It now appears that a new water point is to be installed the other side of the bridge (122).

Does this mean the bank will never be repaired?

Who Made Big Ben?

I have to thank one of my regular readers for bringing this advert to my attention and for being attentive enough to remember my post on the subject back in 2007
I have never seen Big Ben
The new Denison watch, apparently is made by the makers of Big Ben which as we all know was Whitechapel Bell Foundry.
Yes, Big Ben is a bell, not a clock, so to answer my title question - it was certainly not Dent of London Ltd.

  

This watch bears the name Denison who was one of the designers of the clock in the Clock Tower at the Palace of Westminster.  I have tended to refer to the tower as St. Stephen's Tower following a tradition established by Victorian journalists..

However in June this year 331 MPs voted to change its official name from The Clock Tower to Elizabeth Tower in commemoration of the Queen's diamond anniversary. This seems appropriate as the tower at the other end of the palace is Victoria Tower.

I hope Dent of London apply more precision to making watches than they do to creating advertising copy.