Start of Caldon Canal in the Peak District

The next morning, June 21st, after arriving by train the night before (I got on the wrong train at Milton Keynes initially and had to change trains at Birmingham !!! not a good experience but only got to Stoke-On-Trent 15 minutes late) and meeting up with Martin and Sue on the boat at Barlaston, 6 miles south of Stoke-On-Trent on the Trent and Mersey Canal, we set off early to make up time on the canals.  Mooring was initially to be at Stoke-On-Trent but was decided against due to "vagabond country" and boats not being safe at night, so time had to be made up.


Barlaston where the original Wedgewood House is in the distance and surrounding countryside on the edge of the canal.

Barlaston is now where the Wedgewood pottery factory is and we had hoped to go through this factory but it was closed as the new factory and showroom that was being built had not been completed.  After 6 miles and 6 locks we were in Stoke-On-Trent, going through lovely countryside including the Trentham Estate and its Parks and then into the outskirts of Stoke-On-Trent with the old factories and warehouses used for the pottery industry, some of which are being rebuilt and the bottle kilns, brick furnaces shaped like gigantic bottles about 30 feet high that still stand, cold and disused but to be preserved, at the side of the canal.  The canal was important to the pottery industry for the transport of clay and materials to the potteries and then the finished products to the rest of England.

Two bottle kilns on the side of the canal which will be surrounded by new residential buildings.  The bottle kilns now have to be preserved and landscaped into the new developments.

Stoke-On-Trent consists of 6 towns that were amalgamated in 1910 and was built around the pottery industry with factories, warehouses and signs of the industry still surviving especially the bottle kilns and all the well known potteries, some of which are still in production today.

At the Etruria Junction where the Trent and Mersey Canal and the Caldon Canal meet, we turned right into the Caldon Canal, past the Etruria Industrial Museum, a Victorian steam-powered potter's miller's works, built in 1857, which ground bone, flint and stone for the pottery industry, until closure in 1972.  Etruria was the site of the first Wedgewood factory and the Trent and Mersey Canal down passed Balaston was funded by Wedgewood as he needed the canal to carry his pottery out of the area to other parts of England as it was safer than horse drawn transport as by boat there were fewer breakages.  The Museum is no longer open due to lack of volunteers after being restored and opened in the 1990's.

Martin standing at locks beside the Etruria Industrial Museum.

Etruria Junction, with the Trent and Mersey Canal on the right and the Caldon Canal on the left.  In between is the dry lock, part of the Etruria Industrial Museum.  The island in the middle was the "gauging dock".

Notice about the Etruria Wharf and its history.

Start of the Caldon Canal and the statue of James Brindley.

At the start of canal is the statue of James Brindley who was the builder of the Trent and Mersey Canal.







There were 2 staircase locks also at the start of the Caldon Canal.  These locks only have 3 lock gates between them and raised the boat up 19 feet and 3 inches to the canal above.

The boat in the Staircase Locks, the top one in the top lock and the view from the bottom lock in the lower photo.

The canal continued to pass through Stoke-On-Trent, passed  derelict buildings and through more open countryside, under ornamental bridges and rural scenery.

Countryside along the canal just passed Stoke-On-Trent 

 

After having lunch at a country pub, The Foxley, on the side of the canal, a Sunday roast, of course, we continued up through another 6 locks with a raise of 52 feet 2 inches to the canal's summit of 486 feet above sea level.  We moored further on, on the canal just before the Hazelhurst Junction and the Leek Canal, after conquering a total of 14 and a half miles and 15 locks. It was quite a busy and tiring day, the weather turned cold and it started to rain.  To warm ourselves up we had mulled wine that night, the longest day of the year, when it should have been warm and sunny, not like the middle of winter !!!  It rained most of the night.