From (almost) Ellesmere Port to (almost) Birmingham

The title is a quote from a song from the Idle Women show about the volunteer boat women on the waterways in WWII. You may remember that I followed the Idle Women tour a bit for my first few weeks on tour and I saw the show three times. This song was in my head a lot as I visited Ellesmere Port.

The Shropshire Union Canal runs from Ellesmere Port on the south side of the Mersey to Wolverhampton, very close to Birmingham. I did not actually boat it all the way as going to Ellesmere Port would have meant a detour of several days there and back. But I did visit the National Waterways Museum in Ellesmere Port by train. I joined the Shropshire Union ("Shroppie") at Barbridge Junction, 24 miles south of Ellesmere Port and then boated the Shroppie all the way south to Autherley junction, where it ends near Wolverhampton.

When I asked people before, which one is their favourite canal, quite a lot of people said the Shroppie. I have to say that this is not the case for me. The canal has a lot of very nice aspects, but also a few that spoiled it a bit for me. There is the "Shroppie ledge", an underwater protrusion of the canal wall, which means you either have fenders that you can hang kind of under your boat or you'll bang against the ledge all the time when moored. I tried it with the tyres that I had fished out of a lock early on the tour (or rather my first crew Sabine did), but couldn't make it work properly. The only places where there is no ledge are dedicated visitor moorings, where they have replaced the stone wall with steel piling. Combine that with very bad mobile coverage (no internet!) in large areas and it took me a long time on some days to find a place to moor with piling and mobile coverage all in one place.

History of the Shropshire Union Canal

But first as ever a little bit about the history of this canal. Even when just looking at a map, you can see that this is a young-ish canal (as canals go) as it is very straight almost all the way. This was achieved by cutting through hills and building up embankments as it actually goes through quite hilly terrain in places. The canal was built in different stages and by different companies, so it did not have one clear goal from the outset to connect place A to B.

The whole length of the Shroppie main line was only opened up in 1835 and called the Shropshire Union Canal when the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company, an amalgamation of various other companies took it over.

On the Mersey end in Ellesmere Port, the Manchester Ship Canal (MSC) was built toward the end of the 19th century to enable big ocean going ships to go from the Mersey into the port of Manchester in Salford. Today the end of the Shroppie is at the MSC rather than the Mersey itself.

National Waterways Museum Ellesmere Port

The Waterways Museum is located in an interesting place at the old terminus of the Shroppie with its canal buildings, the Manchester Ship Canal as a backdrop and beyond that the big sandbanks of the Mersey estuary.

The town of Ellesmere Port was purpose built for the Shroppie canal terminus. Ellesmere Port later also benefited from the building of the MSC as much bigger ships were now docking here enabling new industries to settle on the waterfront.

The museum is a mix of historic boats, old canal buildings and exhibitions about the waterways and boat building. It was interesting to see so much in one place, but to be honest, I didn't learn that much that I hadn't known before. The most interesting part for me was actually a row of dock workers' cottages each furnished in its own style as they would have been from Victorian times through to the 1950s.

The museum complex

Old inclined plane to haul goods up from the Mersey.

Big barge

The Shroppie, the MCS behind and beyond that the Mersey with Runcorn just visible in the distance

Another large barge

Ice breaker boat

The ice breaker boat has a rail along the top between the two white posts (not very well visible in the picture). Workers would stand on the sides, hold on to the rail and vigourously rock the boat from side to side to break the ice. Cargo boats would follow behind in the gap they created. This looks like a tough job!

Some of the museum's boats have seen better days

Nicely restored narrowboat and butty

The journey

Early on in this part of the journey it was time for a maintenance stop to do my laundry and the Nantwich Canal Centre seemed like a good option. The Canal Centre is located in a branch off the canal and I was envisaging something like Saltisford in Warwick, where you have moorings all along the arm. I entered the arm and went all the way to the end in the hope of moorings, but there were only private moorings in there. Oh dear. It meant reversing all the way back out, which wasn’t so easy. But fortunately there were plenty of nice moorings on the main canal to moor close to the facilities and the launderette (except for the aforementioned ledge). It is a busy place with picnic benches all along and lots of walkers just outside Nantwich.

The next morning I awoke looking at a boat wedged across the canal arm between two boats either side and wondered how it had gotten there. It turned out that that boat had been at the end of the arm being worked on and that during the night thieves had tried to steal it. Apparently not very successfully as they abandoned it before even leaving the site. I always wonder why and how people actually steal a canal boat. You can’t really make a quick getaway with it and there are not many options where you can go. But apparently it does happen and boasts get covered up and overpainted to disguise them quickly. Fortunately not this one.

Busy Nantwich Canal Centre

Embankment above Nantwich

Aqueduct in Nantwich

I continued my journey along the Shroppie, which is straight almost all the way. The canal goes along tall embankments and through very deep cuttings. The cuttings are maybe the most distinctive and exciting feature of this canal. There was one only a single boat wide with almost vertical cliff faces either side and almost completely overgrown. Every now and then it had a high narrow bridge. It took maybe 20 minutes to cross this cutting and felt a bit like Middle Earth.

Narrow and deep cutting

An ominous warning

A high bridge in the dense forest

An interesting bridge

Trees forming a dome

Especially the northern part has many sweeping views from the embankments over open country side of lush rolling hills with grazing cattle and sheep. The landscape reminded me a bit of Sussex or Kent - only with more cows.

Daramatic skies as ever on this trip

A large flock of Canada geese

The Shroppie's locks

My whole return route has surprisingly few locks, which is mainly due to the fact that I turned off before Manchester and am skirting round Birmingham. The Shroppie's locks are bundled into three lock flights in short succession:

Audlem with 15 locks
Addersely with 5 locks
Tyrley with 5 locks

Apart from these, the canal has no locks along many miles. I cruised for days without any locks. Dare I say it, I miss the locks a bit as they break the cruising up a bit and provide an opportunity to chat to other boaters.

Audlem was the first proper big lock flight since Manchester many weeks ago. The Audlem locks are lovely. They are very well maintained so that they are easy to operate. Also they are low enough so that I could get off to the lock side by climbing over the roof rather than having to use the ladders.

The only issue with these locks is that they have weirs with a fierce bywash, which in my opinion is in an unfortunate position and angle. Bigger lock flights mostly have weirs as overflows to maintain a constant water level. The water normally comes out at the bottom of the lock alongside so that it doesn’t impact on boat movement much. In Audlem, however, it comes out across the canal mostly directly before the lock gate, which inevitably sweeps the boat to the side just as you enter the lock. No matter what strategy I used to avoid it, I hit the lock wall almost every single time. Judging from the looks of the walls I was not the only one.

Suddenly the canals have gotten busy. There were lots of boats coming toward me down the flight so that I could often go directly from one lock into the next. Plus I had a lovely couple behind me who always just arrived as I was leaving a lock and closed the gate behind me. So it was a very relaxed ascent apart from one impatient Australian who shouted at me, because I wanted to open the gate of the next lock before leaving the previous one so that I could go straight through. He told me that this was all wrong and that I should vacate this lock NOW! I replied that he shouldn’t really be on a canal boat if he is in such a hurry. I have met very few people like this though, so he didn’t really get to me much.

Welcome to Audlem

Pubs near the bottom end of the flight

On and on it goes

Canal crane

A view from a bridge

At the top of the locks there was a little open cupboard with cake and ice cream and an honesty box. I loved that. And the homemade cake was a real treat after 15 locks.

The cake cupboard

I strolled around the village of Audlem a bit the next day. It looks very prosperous and very patriotic with flags everywhere. I think the locks are the main attraction as there are two pubs at the locks plus a big canal shop. And the Shroppie Fly pub has a genuine old boat as its bar!

Shroppie Fly

Canal shop

Audlem church

Audlem village

The next day I moved less than a mile and then did the next flight of five locks. They are so close to Audlem, but a world apart as the paint was peeling off them, they were leaky and the paddles were creaking. Which reinforced the impression that the Audlem locks are a tourist attraction more than anything. Strangely after having queued at Audlem the day before, I was alone there. I wonder how people actually got to Audlem as it was right next door.

The best bit was another open cupboard at the top this time with delicious homemade pork pies, sausages and bacon. The farmer showed up and we chatted a bit. He said that they don’t really make any money with this little shop but they love doing it as they love the boating on their doorstep. Thank you! It is such a nice gesture. I am now always looking out for canal side wares.

Leaky lock with a fountain rather than a waterfall for a change

Not quite as nice looking as Audlem

Sausage and pork pie cupboard

I moved on to Market Drayton and wandered round the lovely village the next day as it was market day. Then it was a short trip through the last 5 locks at Tyrley. They are quite unique as they are set in dense woods and feel very remote. I met a couple of boats but was mostly alone there again. Similarly to Audlem some of the locks had a fierce bywash. One was even mentioned in the guide as a warning. Although I took every precaution to steer against it, the boat was thrown into the trees on the off side. I don’t know why they build them like this, honestly.

Market in Market Drayton

Tyrley locks in the woods

The bywash that threw me into the trees

Overall my lasting impression of the Shroppie is of quite slow progress despite the canal being so straight. Large parts of it are lined with private moorings so there are miles and miles of boats lined up along it, which have to be passed at slow speed.

Miles of boats

One amusing feature was the super competitive fishing going on here. There were several places where a whole line of fishermen with enormously long carbon rods were lined up on the straight bank all completely focused on their fishing. They had all professional gear, high tech chairs and keep nets (I learned that is is what the thing was called that wrapped itself around my propeller earlier). They weighed their catches and I am sure there were trophies. But as I pootled by with my slow boat one by one they had to lift their fancy lines out of the water. It was like going through a Mexican wave. They must have hated it, but I didn't get any grumbling.

Competitive fishing

After five days on the Shroppie I arrived at Autherley Junction, where the Shroppie ends at the Staffordshire and Worcestershire (Staffs & Worcs) Canal. Here I am rejoining a part of canal that I have already done on the way north. This is so that I avoid going through Birmingham again. Half a mile from the junction the other way is the Wolverhampton flight with 21 locks. No thank you!

Here are a few more impressions from the Shroppie: