Great Haywood to Alrewas

Saturday 22 March 2008
Great Haywood to Alrewas Day 2
Trent and Mersey Canal

Miles 14
Locks 12
Hours 5

The forecast was for cold, northerly winds with snow showers later and for once the weatherman was spot on. The strong winds resulted in much crabwise progress down the exposed sections of the T&M but, as we experienced yesterday, we were virtually the only boaters using the canal. Things calmed down as we navigated the sheltered sections through Rugely and Armitage but even around the usually busy usually Kings Bromley Wharf, nothing was moving.


We fairly raced through the Fradley flight but we were accompanied by a gaggle of gongoozlers who tend to congregate around the Swan Inn.


Our ambitions for this day had never been very great and we planned to stop in Alrewas and attend an Easter Morning service in the Parish Church. We reached the village in good time but spend about 30 minutes faffing around when we discovered that there were no spaces on the visitor moorings between the water-point and the lock onto the river section. Our solution was to lock down onto the river, turn by the weir and return to the winding hole north of the church and moor in a space we has spied right beside the church. We had decided to eat out to make up for the non appearance of fish and chips last night and by chance we opted the Crown. The Capt spied a hand written poster advertising a real ale festival which offered about 12 different local ales at £1 per ½ pint. We sampled 3 or 4 and were particularly taken with Old Legover. In the end we signed up for the whole thing including pie and mash at a reasonable £4 a head plus apple pie for pudding. The staff were really welcoming and the event was a great success from our point of view.


The evening concluded with another 2 episodes of Primeval and sleep to the sound of the Alrewas parish church clock

Calf Heath to Great Haywood

Friday 21 March 2008
Calf Heath to Great Haywood Day 1
Staffs and Worcester Canal

Miles 15
Locks 13
Hours 7

We had delayed start from Calf Heath which involved a return to home to collect the overlooked pile of Easter eggs. Sadly that wasn’t all we had forgotten, it later transpired that we had overlooked a key to feed the Guinea Pigs and Tilly’s school shoes, which are an essential element of her boarding school uniform. However, this omission was not spotted till long after we had passed the point of no return.


Whilst the trip down the Staffs and Worcester to Great Haywood covered familiar ground, the weather was far from normal with strong northerly winds bring with it an assortment of wintry showers and squalls of hailstones (which Jeff loved).


Predictably, very few boats had ventured out and we made good time, arriving in Great Haywood at twilight after 7 hours of cruising. Sadly the fish and chip shop which I had promised proved to have been something of a mirage of my imagination and had mysteriously metamorphosed into newsagent, so Belle resorted to pasta and sauce which was followed by 2 episodes of BBC’s Prehistoric Sci-Fi series, Primeval. We moored up just below Gt Haywood Lock, out of the howling gale and beside the upper reaches of the Trent, which was to be our companion for the next two weeks.

Birmingham to Boston Introduction

A record of an Easter journey from the Midlands to the Lincolnshire coast

Index of posts in this series:


1. - Introduction - this post
2. - Calf Heath to Great Haywood
3. - Great Haywood to Alrewas
4. - Alrewas to Stenson
5. - Stenson to Nottingham
6. - Nottingham to Newark
7. - Newark to Lincoln
8. - Lincoln to Kirkstead Bridge
9. - Kirkstead Bridge to Boston
10. - Boston to Lincoln
11. - Lincoln to Torksey
12. - Torksey to Newark
13. - Newark to Nottingham
14. - Nottingham to Ilkeston
15. - Erewash Canal to Sandiacre
16. - Sandiacre to Burton on Trent
17. - Burton on Trent to Tixall
18. - Tixall to Calf Heath
19. - Conclusion


As much as anything this is a trip back in time. The industrial Midlands have been my home for nearly twenty years and feel light years from the fenland towns where I spent the formative part of my working life. What better way to revisit Lincolnshire than a slow trip by water, pausing in the cities of Nottingham and Lincoln along the way.

Boston isn’t a destination that quickens the pulse of many boaters, who are largely unaware of this eastern outpost of the connected waterways network. So, why Boston? Well, I have a vivid memory of arriving in the town during a cold and wet November in the early 1980’s and noticing a dilapidated narrow-boat moored in the reeds on the salty side of the Grand Sluice, and wondering how it got there. I found a map and traced the probable course of its journey back through the Ancient Fossdyke, a Roman canal from the 1st century, then up the Tidal Trent and into the Trent and Mersey canal, which was familiar territory from family boating holidays in the 70’s. I always promised myself a narrow-boat if I lived in the Midlands and, one day, to make my own passage to the town and moor alongside my first house.

This is an account of how I realised a peculiar ambition in n.b. Wand’ring Bark (WB).

Bangers in Penkridge

23rd Feb 2008
Calf Heath to Penkridge
Staffs and Worcester Canal

14 miles
12 locks
7 Hours

A family day out with a full contingent including the Bag people. Weather was unexpectedly dry but a bit of a raw northerly wind all day.

Only saw one other boat on the move – Helouise from CH marina.

We had a great lunch of sausage sandwiched in Penkridge basin.

Overnight to Brewood

2nd and 3rd Feb 2008
Calf Heath to Brewood
Staffs & Worcester and Shropshire Union

24 miles
2 locks
8 hours

A fantastic impromptu weekend away with great weather for the time of year. No coats or gloves needed for this very familiar trip up the Shropshire Union with the Capt, Belle and Jeff (Tilly at school). We had a meal at the Bridge pub which offered very limited selection as it was being sold the following day!
Wand'ring Bark performed perfectly after its winter break and, as usual, it was toasty and warm with the fire lit. The Capt tried out his digital new camera which will feature regularly in the log from now on. We woke at 9.30 to hear the birds singing in the trees and the church bells calling the faithful to worship.