Tag: Staffs and Worcester Canal

The Shropshire Union is now behind us. We stopped in Brewood, where the Bridge Inn has the best idea ever for a canal side pub – a launderette. So for once our towels are nice and fluffy rather than reminiscent of sandpaper.

I have a real soft spot for the Shroppie, it’s never been a secret. Sometimes I think every canal we are currently on is my favourite. I can see good points in them all.

We are now on the southern section of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, which is truly lovely. We cruised it last year all the way up from Stourport on Severn and Dan, Lianna and Rowan joined us for some of the journey. We also hung around Kinver for a few days, and enjoyed Kinver Edge and visiting the Holy Austin Rock Homes.

Last year of course, my blogging output was woeful, so anything I write about this beautiful waterway now should be new and fresh.

The first thing to say is that the Staffs and Worcs always smells particularly clean to me, and I mean clean like washing powder. Sometimes the locks are so foamy you feel like you’re in a washing machine (or escaping from the Blob, if you’re more into sci-fi than housework)! I even checked with Google, but there’s nothing particular in the water, no factory churning out soapsuds and discharging into the water, no reason for it at all. As the blowholes at the locks seem particularly fierce and it’s not unknown for me to get a faceful, clean is good!

Part of this canal is suburban, you can tell by the accents we are in the Black Country, and part feels very rural. We hear more sheep than we see, and there are lots of trees lining the canal. It isn’t so good for gaining solar power, but it certainly makes for a pretty journey.

Then there are the gardens. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a canal where people seem to appreciate what’s at the bottom of their gardens so much. We moored at Wombourne for a couple of nights, firstly because there’s a very useful Sainsbury’s rignt next to the canal, and secondly because the weather couldn’t make it’s mind up so we just stayed put for a day rather than risk getting drenched when we don’t need to. Next to our mooring a chap had adopted part of the towpath as an extension to his garden, and very nice it was too. We also saw a CRT volunteer party a couple of times, very friendly and taking an obvious pride in keeping the canal attractive.

Sadly not everything has been a feast for the eyes. One of the things the CRT provide for us itinerant boaters is refuse disposal points. We’ve moaned for a long time that not many of them have recycling facilities. That’s all changed this year, and we now have to split our rubbish in the same way we do at home. I even have a compost caddy taking up some of our rather limited worktop space. Well, that’s all well and good, but we went to drop off the rubbish today at Greensforge Lock and were greeted with every bin full and overflowing. A passerby told me that being so close to Birmingham people suffering from the bin strike there are coming down to our facilities and depositing their rubbish here by thowing it into the compound. The very cheek! Yes, I did drop an email to CRT asking for an extraordinary bin collection. No-one wants rats.

However, I’m not going to let a little thing like that spoil my enjoyment of a beautiful canal we shall be leaving all too soon.

I have to think back a bit now. Once we got off the Shroppie and onto the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal at Autherley Junction, we enjoyed ourselves immensely. I guess I have a new favourite canal. It’s quite an interesting one, with lots of twists and turns – a contour canal – has some beautiful scenery and intriguing towns and villages on the banks. We spent three days travelling northeast on the Staffs and Worcester in mostly good weather and I want to go back, take my time, and explore the whole canal.

There were only a couple of downsides. For a few hundred metres you pass a chemical works with prominent “no stopping” signs, and then there was the night we spent at Acton Trussell. We moored outside the enthusiastically-reviewed Moat House Hotel on a Saturday night. To be honest, I was rather hoping to be treated to a night’s B&B to celebrate my birthday and maybe even enjoy the luxury of a wallow in a bath! Sadly they were fully booked and we soon found out why. There was a wedding taking place, and I expect the guests had taken over the whole hotel. We didn’t mind the festivities and loud disco, it was actually rather jolly and we almost felt like we were celebrating along with the wedding party. We fully expected it to go on until midnight and we aren’t normally people who retire to bed early. We even had fun guessing which of the old standards the DJ was going to play next (Madness followed by Bad Manners and Dexys Midnight Runners was a bit of a no-brainer if you’re of a certain age). They were still going strong at 1 o’clock in the morning, and by that time we’d definitely had enough, especially as for the last 30 minutes it felt like we were in Ibiza rather than Staffordshire. And to compound my grumpiness at an early start after a late night we boated in the rain the next day.

The destination was worth the early start. We arrived at one of our favourite moorings, Tixall Wide, to enjoy the bank holiday. Apart from the honking of Canada Geese and the eroding banks which are apparently going to be fixed this summer, it’s a joyful place to spend a couple of nights.

On May Bank Holiday Monday we took the opportunity to visit the farm shop at Great Haywood Junction, and Shugborough Hall. The Shugborough Estate is one of the few National Trust properties we can easily access from the canal. I do like to see more opulence in my stately homes and a little less of the National Trust’s educational displays, but The Lichfield Apartments were a delight. It was almost as if Lord Lichfield had just stepped out of his family home for a few minutes with his camera and gone off to photograph the Royal Family, or someone equally famous.

And finally for this post, on Tuesday we had a day off. Martyn didn’t think so, as we took the opportunity to give the boat a good clean, firstly because it absolutely needed it, and secondly in readiness for the Coronation weekend to come.