Mow Cop

The village of Mow Cop lies atop the hill of the same name that rises to 1100ft (335m) above the surrounding land. It makes for a strenuous, but rewarding, walk from the Macclesfield Canal at Scholar Green or you can do as we did and get the no. 99 bus from Kidsgrove.

The village could be said to have a split personality. The county boundary, separating Cheshire and Staffordshire runs right though it, which means that the community also sits astride the official divide between the North West of England and the Midlands. Its two former main industries also couldn't be more distinct - millstone grit quarrying and velvet making!

At the top of the hill is the castle - built as a folly by a local landowner in 1754.

The castle at Mow Cop

From the castle there are spectacular views over Staffordshire - towards the Potteries - and from the other side over Cheshire including the Jodrell Bank radio telescope, Fiddlers Ferry power station and Liverpool Cathedral.

The view over Staffordshire

The Cheshire View

The main reason for my visit was to find a pub. Not just any old pub, but the "Cheshire View" The pub lies on one of the steepest roads in England and I wanted to see if my memories of lorries grinding up past the windows at slow walking pace whilst we supped pints of Marston's Bitter inside were accurate.

The Cheshire View pub. A notice inside claims the gradient is even steeper than 25%

Memory plays tricks -especially after 35 years or so - but the pub was still there and the road was as steep as I remember. The pub hadn't changed much either -which did surprise me - and it even still sells a palatable drop of Marston's ale. No sooner had we arrived than there came a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder - and all the lights went out!

After the storm, which was short lived, the landlord lent us a pair of binoculars kept behind the bar so that we could enjoy the "Cheshire View" after which the pub is so aptly named. At least its a more appropriate name than its previous one - the Railway Hotel - as the station was over a mile away and 600ft lower down the hill.

We managed the downhill walk back to Kidsgrove and later -after rescuing an abandoned piling hook from the moorings - moved the boat a mile or so onto the Macclesfield Canal tying up just past the full visitor moorings at Bridge 86. By 21.00 it was obvious that the residential boat opposite was going to be running its engine all evening as the occupants settled down in front of their power-hungry wide-screen telly and as we realised that there was now a vacant space on the visitor mooring we bow-hauled Starcross back through the bridge to a quieter spot.

Our (eventually) peaceful mooring at bridge 86

Up the Cheshire Locks

Lawton Treble locks - an example of the doubled lock chambers on Heartbreak Hill

Although our guests had a taste of lock work yesterday it was only today that they perhaps realised just why we had invited them along! From Wheelock a series of 26 locks in just over six miles lifts the Trent & Mersey Canal from the Cheshire Plain to the summit level at Kidsgrove at the edge of the Potteries conurbation.

Known to boaters as the "Cheshire Locks" the flight also bears the alternative name of "Heartbreak Hill" given by generations of working boatmen. Built in the 1770s, commercial traffic was so heavy that in the 1830s most of the locks were duplicated to reduce delays. With the post-war decline in commercial traffic many of these duplicate locks were allowed to fall out of use or were even removed so that today only 17 duplicates remain open. The remaining locks have also gathered a reputation for being difficult to operate and with boat traffic now reaching levels not seen since the hey-day of cargo carrying a campaign has been set up to call for improvements and re-opening of the duplicate locks.

Starcross left Wheelock wharf at precisely 10.17 (I'm not usually so precise about recording timings, but this time I was) and stopped for lunch above Pierpoint locks at 13.05 - lunch being taken on the towpath due to the fine weather.

A well-deserved lunch stop for the crew above Pierpoint Locks

We re-started at 14.35 (due to the hot weather) and Robina, 8, took a turn at the tiller. Like many children and other non-drivers she took to it instinctively - not having to unlearn any car driving skills.
On the Red Bull flight we met a solo boater in a small cruiser who seemed to be having difficulty negotiating the locks - we had to remind him to close the top gate! Asked if he was in trouble he said no - but admitted he was new to it. He asked how far it was to Wheelock - his intended destination for the night and was horrified to learn that he would have to pass through another 20 locks -which came as a complete surprise!

The locks were busier now and after several delays following other boats plus a visit to the services at Red Bull we arrived at the top lock imprecisely some time after 18.00, but not before squeezing under this ultra-low headroom bridge at Kidsgrove.

Bridge 134 at Kidsgrove

At Red Bull the main line of the Trent & Mersey passes under the Hall Green branch and rises through two locks to Hardings Wood Junction where the branch leaves the main line and doubles back on itself before crossing the aqueduct in what is an early form of a "grade separated junction" of the sort found on modern-day motorways. We followed the branch and after dropping off Annette and Robina to collect their car from the station (and yes, it was still there) we tied up just over Red Bull aqueduct at 18.50.

Poole Hall Aqueduct and the Hall Green branch as seen from the main line

Starcross on the branch just over the aqueduct

Two Thousand Miles

Our visit to the Middlewich Folk and Boat Festival was to be followed by a trip up the Macclesfield Canal to Marple, then a perambulation around the remainder of the "Four Counties Ring" that takes in the, er....three, ...counties of Shropshire, Cheshire and Staffordshire. First of all though I had to return to work for a fortnight, leaving Starcross in the tender and loving care of Aqueduct Marina at Church Minshull.

The crew reassembled there on Saturday morning having firstly collected our guest, Annette, and daughter, Robina, from Kidsgrove station, where they had left their car for the weekend. We had lunch on board and then got away back along the Middlewich branch on a lovely early summer's afternoon. By 16.00 we were back at Middlewich, negotiating Wardle lock under the ever-watchful gaze of Maureen, who lives in the lock cottage there. "Who made your chimney?", she said. But I'm afraid I rather spoilt her little joke by telling her that I didn't know, because I suspect her next line would have been "You'd better get him to make you another after you've been through the next bridge." The bridges on this part of the Trent & Mersey Canal have notoriously low headroom, but I'd remembered that and removed the offending item whilst in the lock anyway.
The first few miles of the Trent and Mersey Canal out of Middlewich parallel the main road and offer hardly the most inspiring canalside scenery.

By now the rain had started and it was quite heavy at times - as were the paddles as we climbed the locks away from Middlewich. The sight of the recently demolished canalside Bisto factory came as a shock although less unexpected was the closed and boarded Kinderton Arms at lock 70. On what must have been a particularly thirsty trip on a Willow Wren Kearns hire boat in the early 1970s we stopped here for a drink and were talked into a game of dominoes by the locals. After a few rounds of "fives and threes" they asked us if we knew the version of the game called by some obviously local name that I've now forgotten. We had to say that we'd never heard of it - at which they were amazed - not surprisingly as it turned out to be just the standard version that everyone else knows as "dominoes" anyway. Unfortunately, it doesn't look as if anyone will be playing dominoes, or anything else, in the Kinderton for a long time, if ever again.

This time, we carried on past it and eventually the rain stopped and the sun came out and we tied up for a very pleasant evening in the countryside just short of Wheelock, where we enjoyed this fabulous sunset.

Shortly before stopping for the evening though, we passed a milestone in our ownership of Starcross - or rather we passed two thousand of them with bridge 162 "Stud Green Bridge" representing 2,000 miles of boating since we bought Starcross in November 2004.

"That was a great day" said Annette, "although there were quite a lot of locks. Will there be any tomorrow?"

If only she knew!