Wednesday 12 September 2012

China Crisis

We left our mooring at Longport at 8am this morning and made great headway as the canal is wide and deep and lined on both sides – chance to give the engine a good run.  We soon found ourselves at Etruria (great name!) which was the site of the original Wedgwood factory and, still surviving, the fabulously named Etruscan Bone Mill (now housing the Etruria Industrial Museum).

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Etruria Junction where the Caldon Canal branches off to the left.

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The locks are deep at Etruria………

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…….and exciting to get out of (duck!!!!!)

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A canal side development – can’t we do better than this?

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Trains and boats but no planes – just old graffiti. This is lock 37 at Stoke Locks.

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This is probably lock 36 – someone back in 1962 obviously took great pleasure in making lock gates.

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It looks like we’re about to tunnel our way under the Stoke incinerator building.  Actually quite a nice piece of modern architecture.

Having done the washing going along we moored at Barlaston, one of our favourite places, and managed to get it dry before the rain set in for the afternoon.  We walked up to the (new)Wedgwood factory, built in 1939, and which is only 500 yards from the canal.  We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the factory tour and looking round the museum.  Did you know that the recess in a saucer is called the penny?

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Here we are at our Barlaston mooring  basking in the evening sunshine.

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