Up to the Mersey

Monday 22nd April
We left Nantwich on another warm and sunny morning, heading north towards Chester. The canal from here to the end, at Ellesmere Port, is built to broad dimensions so everything felt so much easier with wider bridges and of course larger locks.
This canal was originally part of the Ellesmere canal network built to link the limestone quarries, around Llangollen with the river Mersey. This required the building of a new port at the junction, which became Ellesmere Port.
I mentioned Telford's amazing skills, building the canal from Nantwich down to Birmingham,  he was involved with this earlier canal working with William Jessup who designed this canal.
William Jessup was one of the great canal builders, some of the greatest northern  canals were all down to him. He is somewhat overlooked due to his modesty.
We travelled up past the junction with what is now known as the Llangollen canal at Hurleston,  before passing the busy junction with the Middlewich branch at Barbridge, heading east to join the Trent and Mersey. Beyond here traffic reduced significantly as most boats turned right towards Middlewich.
We pressed on  with the busy A51 keeping us company for several miles.
Shortly after, we arrived at the old mill at Calveley and the large and very busy CRT service station before reaching some lovely Cheshire countryside.
We arrived at Bunbury locks, a double staircase, reminding us of the  locks on the Leeds Liverpool canal, We did a switch over here, there was a boat coming up the lock, so we entered the top chamber and the other boat entered the bottom. Once we had equalised the levels we opened the gates between the two chambers and swapped places with the other boat. They filled the top and we emptied the bottom camber before heading off in opposite directions.

Bunbury Locks

Pressing on through a wooded cutting with bluebells giving a misty blue hue around the base of the trees, we arrived at the next lock, this time a single chamber, passing through to the next two locks at Beeston. The top lock is known as Beeston Stone Lock for the simple reason it was built of stone rather than the usual brick hereabouts and the second is known as the Iron lock, again because this was built in the form of an iron tanks. The reason for the change to these two materials was due to the unstable nature of the ground, the area being surrounded by sandy hills.
Although the iron lock is built to broad dimensions, boaters are now advised to pass through one boat at a time, on our arrival we joined a queue of three boats down and three boats up, the lock filling and emptying is also very slow so an hour or so elapsed before we could make our way through.Most of the boats were heading home having taken advantage of the lovely Easter weather.
A mile or so further on we arrived at the last lock of the day, before dropping down to the moorings outside the Shady Oak pub, a remote establishment with a caravan site alongside.
This whole area is dominated by the impressive Beeston Castle, sitting on top of a huge sandstone outcrop some 350 feet above the surrounding countryside.

Beeston Castle

The castle is now looked after by English Heritage, we walked up to have a closer look but were too late to be able to climb up to the top. We walked right around the outcrop before returning to the pub and boat.
The castle is in ruins, another one destroyed by the Parliamentarians after the civil war. The Royalists survived a siege from November 1644 to November 1645 when they finally succumbed due to lack of food, the Cromwellian forces then partially destroyed the fortress, ensuring it could no longer be used as a stronghold.
Behind the hill and castle lay the pretty wooded slopes of the Peckforton Hills, reminding us of central Germany.
This whole area was a pleasant surprise to us as we were expecting flat fields as we approached Chester.

The top of the five locks dropping into Chester
Note the typical round "lock keepers"hut found along this stretch

The following morning we cruised on down to Chester passing through the five locks before arriving in the city centre, to our relief we found there was plenty of mooring space available on the moorings by the Lock Keeper pub. The walk into town from here was only a couple of minutes.
We stayed here for a couple of days enjoying some of the many attractions Chester has to offer.
On the second day we decided to relocate to the basin at the bottom of triple staircase locks, this meant a trip through an impressive cutting along side the City walls, passing the KIng Charles II tower where he reputedly watched his army being defeated by the Parliamentarians.

King Charles's Tower

A little further on we passed under Chesters own version of the Bridge of Sighs, an old bridge accessing the city gaol.

Chester's Bridge of Sighs

We battled through the difficult locks in  a torrential rainstorm, before arriving in the large basin below, there are plenty of moorings here along with all boater facilities, however, boaters please note, the refuse disposal is at the top of the locks.

Chester 3 lock staircase, the middle chamber is carved from solid rock

The basin contains the link down to the river Dee with the five locks linking the basin and river. This made Chester an important location until the development of the Mersey ports took most of the trade. The link fell into decline but has recently been renovated, the final lock onto the tidal river being the missing piece of the jigsaw. This lock, sady is still in a state of dereliction.

  

The basin at Chester

The lock from the basin onto the Dee linkxb64w hkcf 

The link onto the river Dee

Chester town center

The Dee at Chester, a river we will be reunited with later

We made use of the Laundrette located just five minutes walk from the basin.
The following morning (Friday) our departure was delayed due to the canal being closed after the tragic discovery of a body a few hundred yards up from us, we were given the all clear before moving on to cross the Wirral.
This is quite a pleasant stretch of the canal passing close by Chester Zoo before going under the very busy M56. From here the view becomes somewhat more industrial with the large oil refinery at Stanlow. Crossing under the M53 we noted the site of the now demolished Wolverhampton Corrugated Iron works, they must of been huge as the works quayside stretch for almost a mile.
We arrived a Ellesmere Port and moored outside the Waterways Museum, there are moorings in the lower basin of the port but as it was raining we decided to stay at the top.
Before the arrival of the canal there was only the small village of Whitby in the location, however once the construction of the port and its link to the Mersey was completed the whole area developed into the town of Ellesmere Port now known for its connection with car production at the site of the Vauxhall works.
The museum is definitely worth visiting with many interesting exhibits  and interactive displays more information can be obtained on their website.
After the completion of the canal in mid 1790's the area was further enhanced by the construction of the Manchester ship canal in 1893, some very large ships now pass below the port.
We purchased our tickets for the museum and, as they are valid for 12 months, we visit several times during our stay here.

The lower basin of the museum with the storm clouds building in the distance

Looking out from the lower basin anto the Manchester Ship Canal

Tug on the Ship Canal

The weather took a turn for the worse so we had to sit out the teeming rain and howling gale for around 36 hours, before turning round and retracing our steps back to Chester.
Much improved weather with fine sunshine greeted our arrival at the bottom of the three rise locks, and the weather had brought out quite a number of visitors some of whom helped us up the locks.
Following a quick visit to the shops we pressed on up the five locks to moor up at the charming village of Christleton.

Canal scenes at Christleton

Monday morning brought more fine weather and we continued our journey down to Hurleston and the right turn onto the Llangollen canal arriving just in time to pass through the four locks at the junction.