Pelsall - the boats

Pelsall Boating Festival
Sunday
June 2013

From my last post you wouldn't think that this event is about boats! Actually its all about Pelsall really, but the boats are certainly the stars of the show.

 Tony Phillips Trent 5 looking good

The weather was kinder on Sunday and the crowds arrived but, as usual at such events, Sunday is a day out and trade is never as brisk. The lower winds allowed us to present our best ever stall, in my opinion. Bunting was added and an extra table used to create a three sided stall for an impressive display. 

Bunting bedecked Wild Side stall

It was also a day to catch up with friends and contacts and, of course, a day to photograph a few boats.

 The Atlas / Malus combo operated by BCNS / Coombswood Trust

"Three little joshers from Pelsall are we"

All this sociability was lubricated with copious quantities of ale from Ma Pardoes and having sampled the range extensively I have settled on Bumblehole as my favourite (but can be persuaded to quaff Entire or Black Swan if called on to do so).

 From chaos....

... to end of festival calm.

And so the festival came to its conclusion at 4.00pm with the site effectively clear by 6.00pm - very impressive. It just left us with a quiet evening to reflect on a great event and wander round the old industrial site savoring the atmosphere unique to this location.

Out with a bow, or four.

Well done BCNS and all who contributed to the success of the festival.

Pelsall come rain or shine

Pelsall Boating Festival 2013

Saturday

June 2013

As a trader as canal festival we become a bit obsessed with the weather. When boating a general overview of the day is fine but as we start to set out our stall we want an hour by hour forecast to give is time to protect our rain sensitive stock.

Pelsall Boating Festival 2013

Today the ides were not too promising - a ruck of heavy rainclouds bowling up from the south west. We have played this game before and its almost inevitable that one will hit sometime, and so it was.

Wild side sheltering in the lee of the IWA

The first debate was to trade off the boat or from a land based gazebo. Our mooring was  bit uncertain and no one was sure if our overnight spot opposite the Cannock Extension junction was ours to trade from or the spot for the Ikon trip boat. We never found the harbour master to resolve the conundrum so after discussions with the interested parties resolved it ourselves.

Wand'ring Bark at Pelsall

With rain threatening and strong wind blowing into our faces a boat based stall was not a great idea. What was more, the trip boat needed a good bankside location for safety so we swapped after unloading and we moved to the offside of Andrew on an ABC demo boat.

Setting up the festival

No sooner had we started than Helen was struck by a migraine and went off to have a sleep leaving me to man the fort for a few hours. It was during this phase when the rain struck. I had been watching the arrival of a big black cloud and had sorted out a side panel just in time. The rain hammered down and about 10 souls crowded in to get some shelter. The poor old £40 gazebo from Tesco's was stretched to its limits, flogging in the wind like a serpent held by the tail. The deal was : you are welcome to stay, but you have to hold onto the gazebo! The storm passed but its clear that this is the last outing for the canopy - the only place for the frame is the skip.

Cannock Extension Canal

I would like to pay a particular thank you to the IWA who were our greatest supporters on the day, quite literally. With the winds threatening to blow our gazebo away we anchored our supports to their sturdy cabin which really saved the day. Many thanks IWA!

Can I adopt him as my grandad please?

The day was marked by the appearance of many blog readers, who dropped by to make our acquaintance. Several of these were land based locals who have enjoyed my posts on the lost canals of the area which was particularly gratifying. My apologies for not listing you all, there were a lot!

The wind continued to blow but the afternoon was drier and from what I could tell in the bar afterwards, trade was good all round.

Wild Lupins

This is a great location, a real gem of the BCN backwaters. Its hard to believe that this green area was once a hive of heavy industry. Blast furnaces have given way to bats and foundries to ferns - what was once a vision of hell is now a place of much peace and tranquility. 

Pelsall bound

Pelsall Bound

Playing tag with Saltaire

June 2013

This is the third of our four business boat trips this year, taking the preserve stall onto the water road, so to speak.

As the bedraggled Midlands crow flies it is only about six miles from out mooring at Calf Heath to Pelsall, but with the Churchbridge lock having bitten the dust in the 1950's we are condemned to take the long way round via Wolverhampton - a staggering 11 hour diversion.

 Saltaire at Aldersley

But boating is more about the journey than the destination and this roundabout route includes long stretches of the Wyrley and Essington, covering the best and the worst that this undervalued waterway has to offer.

As is so often the case, just as I was untying my ropes a boat came past. On this occasion it was Peter Baldwin's Saltaire, chugging its way towards Pelsall to attend the BCN Society's bi annual bash in the north BCN backwaters. 

Saltaire turned into the Wolverhampton 21 and got as far as lock 20 when it stuck fast. The lock gate wasn't opening fully and Slataire's beamy 7ft was having none of it. Twenty minutes of bouncing the lock gate and we pulled Saltaire in, storming away up the locks with her crew of five.

Stuck in lock 20

Sadly the heavens opened and we made a slow and very soggy ascent, condensation battling it out on one side with the rain on other side of my waterproofs to ensure I was completely soaked through. Never has the 21 seemed so long...

Then it was onto the Wyrley and Essington at the unprepossessing Horsleyfields Junction, sharp left under a low bridge and through the remains of a stop lock and so into suburbia - a state which clings to the canal for most of its length. On this waterway the houses seem to shun the canal, with brambles and delapidated fences dominating the margins, sometimes dropping back and then crowding back in again with a few public open spaces to relieve the claustrophobia.

Classic architecture on the Wyrley and Essington

The cut itself is in good shape. True, its a remiandered waterway but recent dredging by the Trust and grappling by the WRGies plus the recent movement of boats on the BCN challenge, the Explorer A cruise and the recent influx to the Pelsall festival have given it a good stir up and it is massively cleaner than when I first ventured into these remote waters a decade or more ago.

We had leapfrogged ahead of Saltaire at Wolverhampton, but as we stopped at Sneyd to re water and empty our cassettes she nosed round the Sneyd but slowed as we entered the shallow Leamore stretch. We were waved past at Birchills and pressed on through what have been the area's badlands ever since the days of the working craft had their cargoes of coal remorselessly lifted by the locals.

We almost made it through unscathed. Then, right at the last bridge a hoard of disaffected yobs hurled stones at us. I retaliated with my camera and they hid behind the parapet which prevented a second salvo.

Arrival at Pelsall Festival

Then we were there, creeping past nearly 130 boats to our berth beside the finger post ready for unloading tomorrow. Wet, weary but present!

Gilpins Arm - Wyrley and Essington

Gilpins Arm

Wyrley And Essington Canal

June 2013

Its funny how things emerge from chance meetings.

This map is from Richard Chester Browne's "The Other 60 Miles"

I have just returned from the BCNS Pelsall Festival (more of that in another post) and during our time there Paul came to make my acquaintance. Like several others, he confessed to being an enthusiastic reader of my blog and in particular my exploration of the lost sections of the Wyrley and Essington.

We reflected on the lost sections of Sneyd  (Sneed) and then he mentioned an old tributary to the east of Pelsall. It was only his follow up comment on the blog which made reference to Gilpin Crescent that it all made sense - he was referring to the remains of the 1794 Gilpins Arm which is so redeveloped that there is nothing to see on the ground today.

But thats the joy of the blog. It becomes a shared resource so whilst I cant shed much light on Gilpins Arm from my contemporary investigations, here are Paul's memories:

 I mentioned a strange little tributary which used to spur off the Wyrley & Essington canal in Pelsall. If you head from Yorks Bridge to Yorks Foundry Bridge, then continue a short distance until the canal bends sharply to the left, on the outer edge of that bend there used to be (around the early 60s) a small brook which ran off from the canal, crossed by a small bridge. This brook then ran parallel to and between the present day Dovedale Avenue and St.John's Road, following the line of the present day Gilpin Crescent, ending at Norton Road. Even back then, this tributary was mostly dried up. This was before the Ryders Hayes estate was built. Within a few years, the small bridge had gone, and the out bank of the bend rebuilt to remove all trace of where the tributary used to run off. Probably because of the planned Ryders Hayes estate. Anyway, I hope this makes sense - it's been surprisingly tricky to describe! Just another piece in the jigsaw of lost bits of waterway! 

Paul - I hope you don't mind the verbatim quote! 

Richard Chester Brownes commentary indicates that it was built by a landowner George Gilpin and ran beside Newlands Colliery with and extension  beyond Newton Road into common land, which had disappeared completely by the 1880's.

Something new for the kitchen?

Mr D's Thermal Cooker

June 2013

Helen loves her kitchen in the same way I love my shed, and it will therefore comes as no surprise to learn that we are both a bit of a pushover for a new tool.

Of course, as in woodwork, some kitchen innovations work and some don't so my role in the kitchen accessory selection process is to try and weed out the wheat from the chaff before a purchase is made.

We has one such "moment" last weekend in Crick when Helen came back from a visit to a neighbouring stall, all excited about a slow cooker which needs no heating and no attention - just right to provide a tasty meal at the end of a day when the boat galley have been otherwise engaged in the production  of preserves.

I dutifully read the leaflet with my usual skeptical view, casting a nervous eye over the name "Mr D's Thermal Cooker" which all sounded a bit too homespun for a technical innovation. But as I read on and questioned Mr D it was apparent that this was an old idea brought up to date with the product itself made in China.

So what is this culinary panacea to hunger? Well, essentially it is a slow cooker combined with a thermos flask. You prepare your hotpot type meal (actually its much more versatile than that) and bring it to the boil in the stainless steel inner container on a conventional hob. Then you drop it into the vacuum sleeve and leave it alone, letting the contents cook in their own juices ready for serving at a moments notice then that elusive mooring has been found.

 Mr D's Thermal Cooker

So, does it work? Answer: an emphatic yes! The quality of the all important vacuum is excellent and when we removed the contents from its case 8 hours later is was fully cooked, deliciously stewed in its own juices and not just warm but piping hot, so hot that we had to set it aside to cool for a minute or two before we could wolf it down.

 

French Beef Casserole for eight

And its not just us. About 2,000 of the units have been sold to the camping and boating community including trans Atlantic yachts where a reliable and convenient hot meal is a must.

And the price - well, its not exactly cheap and you can expect to spend in excess of 100 notes depending on the accessories you opt for. But given the convenience, the 80% power saving and the enhanced safety of not having stews balanced on the hot plate, its strikes me as a good deal.

The unit comes complete with a cookbook with over 80 recipes covering a range of soups, meat based main dishes, vegetarian options, puddings, cakes and scones to get you into the swing of it.

The website for Mr D's Thermal cooker can be found here.