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The Caldon Canal

October 25th, 2012

The Caldon Canal passing through Hanley Park

A major tourist attraction, the Caldon Canal, which passes through Hanley Park, links The Potteries with Leek and Froghall.

Branching from the Trent and Mersey Canal at Etruria’s Summit Lock, the Caldon Canal was constructed by Scottish civil engineer John Rennie.

John, who designed London Bridge, Southwark Bridge and Waterloo Bridge, was born at Phantassie near Edinburgh on June 7th, 1761. He began his career building flour mills and constructing drainage systems on the Solway Firth. Moving to England, he worked on projects to drain East Anglia’s fens and built roads, bridges and canals, including the Kennet and Avon Canal, the Lancaster Canal and the Rochdale Canal.

Opened in 1779, the Caldon Canal meanders for 17 miles through the Trent and Churnet valleys.

Boats brought coal from Kidsgrove to forges in the Churnet Valley and flint stones to flint mills where they were ground, bake-dried and turned into slop, which the pottery industry used to make earthenware more durable.

The canal terminates at Froghall Wharf, where a tramway had been laid to limestone quarries at Cauldon Lowe.

Between 1779 and 1797  two thousand boats were loaded with 40,000 tons of limestone which was used as a flux to smelt iron ore, to make fertiliser or to build houses, town halls and churches.

Towards the end of the 18th century, the Trent & Mersey Canal Company, which owned the Caldon Canal, decided to build a reservoir at Rudyard and construct branch canals to Leek and Uttoxeter.

The Leek branch opened in 1802 but work stopped on the Uttoxeter branch in 1809 when the company ran out of money. It borrowed £30,000 to complete the branch which opened on September 3rd, 1811 when six or seven boats took the directors and their guests from Uttoxeter to Crump Wood Weir (between Denstone and Alton) for a picnic lunch.

Large wharfs and dry docks were constructed at Uttoxeter where boats were built and repaired.

The branch, which carried coal, copper and brass from Alton, Kingsley and Oakamoor, was not a commercial success. It closed in 1847 The bed was drained and used by engineers constructing the section of the Churnet Valley Railway that ran between Uttoxeter and Froghall.

Like the Uttoxeter branch, the Leek branch was not economically viable although it continued to carry coal until the late 1930s.

Copyright Betty Cooper – The Phoenix Trust 2012

Photograph © Copyright Stephen McKay and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

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The Kidcrew Buggut

September 9th, 2012

Brindley’s Harecastle Tunnel – Home of The Kidcrew Buggut 

The Rev. Frederick George Llewellin was the Vicar of Kidsgrove from 1922 until his death in 1941.

Llewellin wrote a book “The Lighter Side of a Parson’s Life” about his ministry in Kidsgrove.

In this edited extract from the chapter about the boat people who lived and worked on the Trent & Mersey Canal, he tells the story of the Kidcrew Buggut – a ghost that haunts the Brindley Tunnel which runs under Harecastle Hill.

The Kidcrew Buggut 

“Lor, bless yer, lad, don’t yer know? Did yer never hear tell o’ it? Well, gaffer, years ago, in the very middle o’ the tunnel right atween Tunstall on the one side and Kitcrew (Kidsgrove) junction on the other, two men murdered a woman and thew her body inter the tunnel and because it wor a deed o’ violence, and her life wor taken from her before it wur axed fur, that ‘ere ‘oman have never lain quiet.

“But years ago as it wor, she’d appear, sometimes in the form o’ a white horse, sometimes like a female without a ‘ead, but whenever her comes, trouble’s sure to foller. Never wor there an accident at the collieries but the Kitcrew Buggut wor sure to come to tell o’ it. Somebody ‘ll die, or be murdered or drowned in the cut (the canal) or coal mine when that ‘ere ghost appears.”

Llewellin took this version of the story from L.T. Meads’ “Water Gipsies” and went on to say:

“The more recent tradition was that the ghost appeared at times in the Squire’s garden at Clough Hall. On more than one occasion the buggut scared ‘men on evil bent,’ and on other occasions terrified those who saw it.

“I feel it is my duty to say that contrary to local tradition the ‘buggut’ is not obliging enough to tell us of forthcoming disaster. Would that it could, for in my time as Vicar of Kidsgrove we have suffered from a terrible fire following an explosion which killed some men and maimed others, a general strike leaving almost irreparable ruin in its train, and thirdly a flooded mine accompanied by further sad fatalities.”

Edited by David Martin

Photograph Copyright The Phoenix Trust 2012

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Canal & River Trust’s first report

October 10th, 2011

The transition trustees of the Canal & River Trust, which in April, 2012 will take responsibility for 2,000 miles of historic waterways in England and Wales, have published their first report.

The report contains an account of the work done by the trust since it was founded earlier this year. It says the trustees are committed to creating a Council that will have 50% of its members directly elected and that the trust must not become a ‘shadow statutory organisation’ with only the outward appearance of a charity.

Tony Hales, chairman of the Canal & River Trust, said: “It has been a fascinating and jam-packed few months and I and my fellow trustees would like to thank everyone who has helped us. It is extraordinarily rare for an organisation the size and complexity of British Waterways to go through this level of change and none of us underestimates how much work needs to be done. We have however been really encouraged by everyone’s enthusiasm and willingness to engage and support us – from staff and stakeholders. I have every confidence that we can provide the new Trust with the firmest of foundations that will support the waterways for many years ahead.”

To see the full report visit: http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/media/documents/Trustee-Announcement-The-Canal-and-River-Trust.pdf

 

 

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From tramways to railways

September 8th, 2011

The Stockton and Darlington Railway

The Trent and Mersey Canal was part of a national canal network linking the Potteries with London, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Hull and Manchester.

After the canal was constructed, tileries and brickworks were opened in the Fowlea Brook Valley between Chatterley and Stoke. Josiah Wedgwood closed his Burslem factories and built Etruria. A few canalside factories were erected at Longport but most manufacturers stayed in the  pottery villages on the hills overlooking the valley.

Horse drawn tramways with wooden rails were constructed to link Tunstall, Burslem and Hanley with the canal.

By the beginning of the 19th century iron rails had replaced wooden ones. In 1803, the first public tramway, the Surrey Iron Railway, was constructed to carry freight between Croydon and Wandsworth. Four years later, in 1807 a passenger carrying line, the Swansea and Oystermouth Railway, opened in South Wales where there was already a 150 miles of track running from collieries, iron furnaces and copper works to canalside wharfs.

North Staffordshire industry was served by a comprehensive tramway network. Lines radiated from Kidsgrove to Talke, Birchenwood and the Rookery. Tramways carried coal from Harriseahead to Congleton. At Harecastle Hill underground rail roads ran from collieries and ironstone mines to wharfs on branch canals that joined the main canal in the legging tunnel which took it through the hill.

Experimental steam locomotives were used to haul wagons in South Wales and on Tyneside. When it opened in 1825, trains on the Stockton and Darlington Railway were pulled along level stretches of track by horses or steam locomotives and hauled up steep gradients by stationary steam engines. The railway age began five years later in 1830 when the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, opened the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which was entirely dependent on locomotive power to pull its trains.

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The Macclesfield Canal (1831-1939)

December 21st, 2010

The Macclesfield Canal at Kent Green

Built to link the Potteries with Manchester, the Macclesfield Canal runs from the Peak Forest Canal to Hall Green, near Kidsgrove, where it joins the Trent and Mersey Canal’s Macclesfield Branch.

Twenty six miles long, the Macclesfield Canal follows a route surveyed by Thomas Telford who designed the cast iron aqueduct that carries it over Canal Road in Congleton. Civil engineer William Crosley constructed the canal using sandstone quarried at Kerridge and Cloud End to build aqueducts, bridges and lock chambers.

Between Marple and Macclesfield, the canal which is 510 feet above sea level, traverses the western slopes of the Pennine foothills passing through deep cuttings and over high embankments. A flight of 12 locks at Bosley lowers it by 120 feet and the canal continues its journey to Hall Green overlooked by Cloud End and Mow Cop.

Opened in 1777, the Trent and Mersey Canal carried bricks, coal and pottery to Manchester via Preston Brook where it joins the Bridgewater Canal. Realising that these cargoes would be lost if the Macclesfield Canal was built, the Trent and Mersey Canal’s owners were openly antagonistic and tried to prevent its construction. When these attempts failed, the Trent and Mersey Canal Company charged boat owners exorbitant fees to use its branch canal from Kidsgrove to Hall Green, where the long narrow waterway joining the two canals was controlled by stop locks.

The Macclesfield Canal was opened on November 9th, 1831 when 52 boats left Hall Green and sailed northwards to meet a flotilla coming south from Marple. Leading boats in both fleets contained canal officials, their friends and a band. They were followed by pleasure craft and narrow boats carrying salt, timber, cotton, groceries, coal and household goods.

Colliery owner Robert Williamson, who lived at Ramsdell Hall, laid tramways from his coal mines at Harriseahead to a canal wharf at Kent Green. The coal was loaded on to boats and taken to Goldendale Iron Works at Chatterley. A canal side alehouse, the Bird in Hand, where boatmen could moor overnight was built near the wharf.

Unable to compete with the railways built to link North Staffordshire with Manchester during the 1830s and 1840s, the canal gradually ceased to be economically viable. Hall o’ Lee the last colliery on the North Staffordshire Coalfield to use the canal to transport coal closed before the First World War and by the 1930s the only boats on the canal were pleasure craft belonging to members of the North Cheshire Cruising Club. Very few boats used the section of canal between Congleton and Hall Green and it became home to moorhens, herons and water voles. Alder and white willow trees lined the banks. Bulrushes and water lilies grew alongside the towpath while perch, roach, pike, common carp and other fish swam in its still waters.

At weekends char-a-bancs brought anglers from Crewe and Stockport to Kent Green where fishing competitions were held. When twilight fell, they put their rods away and crowded into the Bird-in-Hand’s small back room to drink the landlord’s own brewed ale brought from the cellar in a large white enamel jug.

(Betty Cooper – The Phoenix Trust)

Photograph © Copyright Roger Kidd and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

 

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