Shropshire Union Canal Archives - Beau Romer

1 June 20251 June 2025

Friends and Neighbours

Normal service has been resumed; we’re on the move again. Plans have changed though. We are flying down the Shropshire Union Canal, en route to Birmingham. Although we have covered some miles in the past few days we are nothing like the Flyboats of old. They used to make the journey from Ellesmere Port to Birmingham in 3 days, using horsepower, never stopping, and sleeping in shifts. No wonder the canals were the superhighways of their day.

Alien seed in the wood? No, I think it’s a glamping pod

Although it’s sad and we had plans to meet friends, the Caldon Canal will have to wait.

This tree stump at Cholmondeston looks more like a character from a Star Wars film if you ask me.

We moved from Middlewich on Sunday though sheer boredom as far as Cholmondeston, but that turned out to be a real bonus, as we spent the next few days with Steve and Andy, enjoying cake and breakfast from the tearoom at Venetian Marina, and having a games evening that went on nearly to 1 am – typical boat life. The refurbished and shiny hatch doors are back. It rained too, and my newly-sealed chimney leaked like a sieve. Not sure what went wrong there, but I will have to do it again. Until such time, the plastic bag is our friend.

Adderley Locks are my favourite, complete with pretty flag irises. Just don’t look at the plastic bag …

All good things have to come to an end though, and we set off on Wednesday. We got as far as the reopened Barbridge Inn, and as we cruised by, noting there was a space just right for Beau Romer, there was a shout out of the window. It was Nigel and Diane, our former marina neighbours on nb Escapology. We stopped and had a jolly good catch up before moving on to Nantwich.

Outside the Barbridge Inn, photo copyrighted to Nigel!

Then later in the week we met up with Ian, one of the Friday nighters. He brought Sofia with him, she’s a lovely Portuguese girl hoping to get a job as a radiologist in the UK – we certainly need more like her.

Tea, cake and the evening sunshine. Shame we had to move on for the night because of the Shroppie Shelf

The day we cruised to Hack Green the strong wind and even stronger gusts were a nightmare to contend with. If the wind hadn’t been blowing in our faces instead of broadside there was no way we would have attempted moving. Rain is one thing, but in wind we turn into a 57ft sail. Talking of Hack Green, do you remember the R Whites Lemonade advert? If you sing “It’s a Secret Nuclear Bunker – Hack Green” the words fit the tune perfectly. Go on, try it!

Woodseaves Cutting is dark, narrow, and has two of these amazing high bridges. We just never want to meet another boat coming the other way

The Shroppie is a canal that plays many parts and has many faces. Most of its locks are at the top end and after Nantwich they come thick and fast in flights, 2 at Hack Green, 15 at Audlem, 5 at Adderley and 5 at Tyrley (complete with helpful ghost who opens and closes lock gates), then it’s straight as a Roman Road in many places and nothing but cuttings and embankments apart from one solitary lock at Wheaton Aston. The cuttings tend to be shady and spooky, and there are more stories of the supernatural; a shrieking spirit in Betton, and a strange monkey man in Grub Street. Neither of them troubled us this trip, although we spotted a pair of kingfishers in Betton, the first of the year. I feel sorry for poor old Thomas Telford, the famous canal builder. He never saw this canal finished, defeated by one of those embankments that wouldn’t stay in place at Shelmore.

Knighton Wharf with the factory in the background. It used be be Cadbury, then Knighton Foods, which among other things made Angel Delight. We heard it was closing in 2023, but now it’s open again,manufacturing baby milk

May is a lovely month to be cruising. The elderflower and dog roses are blooming (last year I made elderflower cordial), there are cygnets, goslings and ducklings everywhere. We got chased down the canal by a cormorant. The warm weather and the rain we’ve had over the past week have made the landscapes lush and green. Ollie is growing up and seems to love his travelling life. As long as we continue to have enough water in the canals everything is good.

Ollie wondering where Martyn is off to …

20 May 202524 May 2025

Not Beastly, just Beeston

Taken from our mooring, destination Beeston Castle

We are on go slow this year. Normally it’s rush here, rush there, always chasing a deadline or a rendezvous. This year we’re going with the flow, chilling out a bit more, getting the dog used to his travelling life . I quite like it, but whether I will continue to do so or get itchy tiller remains to be seen.

Come on Sweetheard, just another few steps

We stopped for a couple of nights above Wharton Lock, in the shadow, as it were, of Beeston Castle. You can see the castle on top of a crag for miles. We decided to visit and set off for the canal for what we thought would be quite a strenuous hike. It wasn’t in all honesty, that bad.

Beeston Castle, or the ruins of what we see there today, was built in the 1200s. It’s got an interesting history, in the Civil War the Castle was held by both Royalists and Parliamentarians, and it certainly sits in a commanding position with breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside. I was struck by it’s similarities to Corfe Castle. They were both destroyed about the same time, although Corfe’s building is more complex and it was older. There has been a settlement at Beeston since the Bronze Age, and English Heritage have built a very interesting replica Bronze Age roundhouse in the outer ward.

We had a very pleasant visit, even the small gift shop and the wooden tea hut were nice. And as most people would have realised by now, Martyn and I do love a high vantage point.

Pay attention, I’m trying to take your photograph

From Beeston we continued south, thankfully not getting involved with the Bunbury Shuffle at the staircase locks there, although we did help a hire boat through, it was day 2 and they were a little unsure. Let’s not talk about getting water at Calveley. Tell me, if you were at a water point with two boats hovering waiting to fill up, would you be washing your boat? No I didn’t think so, but guess what we had to wait for? No point in moaning; we’re on canal time, and that’s boat life for you, but I keep looking daggers at the offending boat which we have seen several times since and is now moored just in front of us.

Fresh off the frustration at Calveley, Martyn decided to make friends with a bush at a bridge hole—though the feeling wasn’t mutual. The resulting scratch has since polished out, and I’ve just about forgiven him (for now).

I need to remember to keep my criticism of his driving to myself though, because soon after, we approached Barbridge Junction—a place that, historically, has been my personal nemesis. My track record? Let’s just say “smooth navigation” hasn’t been on the playlist. But this time there was no clattering and no swearing, just the rare thrill of victory and a bit of a smug smile.

Martyn picked up a hitchiker (sorry about the washing!)

The next day on the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union, a very familiar route, we stopped for lunch just after Aqueduct Marina. Unbeknownst to us, Andy and Steve on Saorise, the Bears Aboard, were moored just in front of us, so we made it all of 200yds before mooring up again for drink and a jolly good catch up. That’s one of the joys of canal boating, you never know when you’re going to bump into friends.

The big worry for us now is water levels. As much as we are enjoying the lovely weather, the canals are really suffering. The Leeds and Liverpool is effectively closed from Wigan to Leeds, and one of the branches of the Caldon Canal, where we were planning on going, is now closed too. We really need some rain.

Hail fellows, well met, and thank you for the photos

15 May 202520 May 2025

Chester – Simply The Best

Martyn reading all about NB Friendship, that was the home to a working couple, Joe and Rose Skinner, towed for many years by their mule, Dolly. Stories like that really bring the history of the canals home.

While we were in Ellesmere Port we had to visit the National Waterways Museum, or the Boat Museum as everyone still calls it. Very interesting it was too, much better in our opinion than its sister museum in Stoke Bruerne, which is squarely aimed at primary school age children. It’s really important that we educate the next generations in the history and joys of the waterways if we’re going to have any hope of preserving them, but a little more adult focus is also welcome.

That said, here’s Martyn acting like a kid. He tried pressing Button B, but it wasn’t giving him any money back

We were a bit sad to leave the museum, which our mooring (£12 a night) gave us free access to, and recommend a visit if you’re in the area. They have lots of events too, the day we left it was swarming with volunteers, which was great for us as we had help up the locks, but we missed out on the VE Day celebration party.

Somehow the garment, hanger and peg all ended up in the Shropshire Union. Memo to self; peg the washing on the line more securely in future. And thank goodness for a boat hook and a bit of luck fishing it out. I most definitely did not intend to sacrifice Martyn’s Durango and Silverton Railroad t-shirt to the canal gods!

We didn’t get far that day, just stopped in a nice countryside mooring close to Chester Zoo., I was grateful to Ollie for preventing us from visiting, 2 tickets would have cost an eyewatering £73.

This is the consistory court in Chester Cathedral. No, I had no idea that such a thing existed either. These ecclesiastical courts are still used today, but now mostly to deal with legal issues relating to church property, and not to sentence heretics to be burned at the stake.

We haven’t visited Chester, the black and white city, since 2022 when we went to a memorial to the late Queen in the Cathedral, and watched her funeral moored in Tower Wharf. Then we picked up Stu and Carrie and set off for the Llangollen Canal at breakneck speed. We always planned to return this year.

Chester Cathedral has some stunning modern stained glass windows

There was a contemporary art exhibit in the Cathedral called Peace Doves, by sculptor Peter Walker, each paper dove had a message written by a schoolchild, and the whole effect with music and lighting was very dramatic

You might have guessed we visited the Cathedral. We didn’t however go up the tower. That must be a first. We just walked around the walls and the boat got a bit of a clean. Martyn bought a rechargeable handheld pressure washer, which does a great job. It was too hot to do much of anything else.

I always think of this as Chester’s Bridge of Sighs

Chester really is one of my favourite cities. It’s so pretty, full of history, and the shops aren’t bad either. There’s supposed to be the ghost of a Roman centurion patrolling the walls, but he’s never troubled us and I’m always sad to leave.

This has to be the prettiest shopping street in the country

My lock keeper in action at Hoole Lane Lock. The impressive tower belongs to Boughton Waterworks and dates from the 1850s

11 May 202515 May 2025

There Once Was a Ship that Put to Sea

That scary moment when the gates start to slide open and you know there’s no turning back now

Stuart Wood came to meet us on Friday morning at 7.45am, having already put in his order for a bacon butty which I duly provided (he prefers smoked). It doesn’t do to upset the pilot and Stuart is quite the one. I did some research on him. When he retired after 41 years service he was the Head Mersey river pilot, so we couldn’t have been in better hands.

“Aim for the block of flats” said Stuart

Brunswick Dock Lock is massive when you’re in it. It has a lift bridge, which totally unnecessarily raised for us, and huge semi circular iron lock gates which open before the water has equalised, so the hydraulics must be incredibly powerful. Of course that makes life more turbulent than it has to be for a few seconds, just the thing for the nervous helmsman staring out onto the vast width of the River Mersey.

Looking back to Liverpool. You can just about make out both cathedrals and the Liver Building

Then we were underway, the engine at 1800 revs from the off. That blew the cobwebs out. The breeze was gentle and there was some movement, but mostly it just felt vast and alien. The Rivers Thames and Severn don’t come anywhere near the Mersey estuary for scale.

Ollie got to wear his lifejacket as well as us. I don’t think he was impressed

After a while we turned right into the Eastham Channel, flying along while Stuart kept up a commentary on what we were seeing, The Royal Mersey Yacht Club, the vast landholdings of Unilever, coal stores, warehouses, pubs, and slipways. We passed a sand barge with a seal sunning himself at the stern, but I was too preoccupied trying to keep Beau Romer going in the right direction to grab a photo.

Eastham Lock, built for the big boys, not for the likes of us

All too soon Eastham Locks came into view. I saw a big ship in the lock and thought that was where we were headed, but no, we pulled into its neighbour, equally enormous. They made us tie on fore and aft and we needed the 15m lines required by the seaworthiness certificate. This is boating on a much grander scale than we are used to on the canals. Stuart unsuccessfully attempted to teach me how to tie a bowline while we waited for the lock, but my fingers just won’t do it. It brought back all those memories of doing my firefighter’s badge in the St John Ambulance many decades ago!

We are definitely playing with the big boys now

The Manchester Ship Canal is wide and benign. It was cut in the 1840s so the wealthy Manchester merchants didn’t have to pay the extortionate fees demanded by the Port of Liverpool. Stuart told us it took 6 years to construct, with the navvies setting up communites on the route. At one place they had to dig through solid sandstone and the spoil exists today as Mount Manisty, apparently a haven for birdlife.

Ellesmere Port has its own lighthouse, still lit at night. It’s now the local headquarters of the Fire Service Union

We arrived at Ellesmere Port lower basin at 10.30 am, quite a speedy run apparently, and over too soon. And there we sat, tied to the lock entrance until 3.30 pm. There is a swing bridge across the lock into the upper basin owned by the council, and no-one was available to open it until then. As I was working for a local authority until recently I don’t suppose I’d better say anything disparaging about that!

At this point, we weren’t going anywhere, and we had to get onto the roof to get off the boat!

Would I do it again? Yes, in a heartbeat. You have to be quite determined, there’s a lot to co-ordinate to make the unconventional run from Salthouse Docks to Ellesmere Port across the River Mersey, and it’s not cheap. Stuart was a marvel and we wouldn’t have entertained doing it without him and his knowledge. It’s an exhilarating voyage we never thought we would get to experience, especially not in a narrowboat. It’s about as far as shuffling down a muddy ditch in a tin bath as you can you can get.

Moored at the National Waterways Museum, prosaically right outside the Holiday Inn, and still feeling small

24 April 202327 April 2023

The Slow Train

*Martyn closing the lock gates behind me on the Adderley Flight*

At the tiller chugging along at a stately 3mph, I frequently get earworms. Very often something I see or hear will prompt it. One of my favourites is The Slow Train by Flanders and Swann. I must have been a toddler when I came across this marvellous pair and their comic songs, and the one I remember then was the Hippopotamus Song, mostly because it featured on a little 45rpm compilation record of suitable songs for children (“Mud, mud, glorious mud, there’s nothing quite like it for cooling the blood …”).

It’s that time of the year, lots of spring lambs, in this case sheltering from the drizzle at Hack Green

I get really nostalgic about The Slow Train. Railways tend to follow canals, and as well as the names in the song that are familiar from home – Blandford Forum and Midsomer Norton – we pass some on the canals. This week it was Mow Cop (although not I think the famous one) and Audlem. I remember Scholar Green too, and at some point we’ll collect Selby and Goole. When you pass under so many disused railway bridges and see track routes on the map it does make you wistful for those old forgotten transport routes (even though I don’t remember the railway network pre-Dr Beeching) and marvel at how long the canals themselves have lasted.

See the sign? It’s hardly secret, is it?

But before we got to lovely Audlem we made a scheduled stop at Hack Green. It was one of the reasons we decided to head down the Shroppie instead of taking the direct route south down the Trent and Mersey. We planned to visit the Secret Nuclear Bunker last year but our plans were thwarted. This time we made it.

The bunker is run by a Charitable trust and is a museum of civil defence and the Cold War. Very sobering it is too. I’d always imagined that type of facility to be somewhere the great and the good would take refuge in case of nuclear war but came away with the strong sense they would have to do their best along with us plebs. The bunker was going to be all about communications and keeping the government going if there would be anything left to govern. The outlook for the rest of us was very bleak indeed. See Flanders and Swann again – 20 tons of TNT.

You always know where you are on the Shroppie

Next was lovely Audlem, one of our favourite canal villages. It’s nice to see the Shroppie Fly pub open again and apparently according to one of the locals I spoke to, doing well. We trotted to Oxtail and Trotter, the butcher in Cheshire Street, and I even managed to pick up a Mike Jupp jigsaw to add to our collection from the very popular charity shop. There’s a mill shop on the banks of the canal selling craft supplies and general canalia, although it’s up for sale because the owners want to retire. I hope they find a buyer soon, and someone who will take it on as a going concern; there’s always something to buy there. Audlem is a pleasant place to linger, although this time we didn’t. Never mind the water hose decided to shoot out of the tank while we were using the services there and drench the well deck. I won’t hold it against the place.

Look closely. He’s sitting down on the job while I’m doing all the work on the Audlem Flight!

There are 15 locks on the Audlem flight and some of the bywashes were rather spirited on Saturday. Martyn was at the helm and they certainly tested his skills. We enjoyed a reward of cake and ice cream from Kinsell Farm at the top, and the lady who runs the little canalside stall there to tempt people even kindly shut the last gate for us.

Beau Romer and nb Helen meeting in a pound

Yesterday we cruised down the Adderley locks into Market Drayton, and went to the Red Lion for Sunday Lunch, a real treat. Apparently, Market Drayton is the home of gingerbread due to its links with the spice trade routes through Clive of India, who was a resident of the town. Perhaps we should try some, although after lunch I don’t think I’ve got anywhere to put it!

Sunday lunch in the Joules Brewery’s taproom, The Red Lion. Do you eat it or climb it?

I’m not going to bleat on about repairs and suchlike this time. Things seem to be looking up. I’ll just end with a quick progress report. So far this year we’ve covered 102 miles and 2.5 furlongs, travelled through 3 tunnels, and come through 46 locks.