Rufford Old Hall

We have decided to journey along the full length of the Rufford Branch of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in case there is any chance of a late cancellation by other craft to undertake the tidal Ribble Link onto the Lancaster Canal.

To do this was our original plan but when we tried to book at Wigan all the dates suitable for our calendar had been taken. There were one or two early convoys we could have joined but then we wouldn’t have been able to return till September, which was far too late for us.

This is a difficult system with which to live since one has to book securely months in advance in order to obtain the spot one requires and all boaters know how difficult this is to predict with any more accuracy than a week either way at that distance in time. So Janis and I are happy to take pot luck and adjust our journey plans if necessary when we arrive at the end of the branch at Tarleton Lock. Always we have the beautiful Pennines to do instead.

 

Janis with ‘Roots and Wings’ exit-ing Chicken Lock

 

We left the Leeds and Liverpool proper at Burscough Junction and immediately, after such a long time without, were headily and most unfamiliarly beset by six large locks in close proximity, whose sluices were operated either with strange wooden levers or horizontal winding gear and as usual by the time we became almost used to the new idea we had finished with the locks.

However we’ve been tied up for a few days now close to Rufford Lock, separated from the previous ones by about two miles and near a small village of the same name. Nearby is the National Trust Tudor property called Rufford Old Hall, built and, up until fairly recently, owned by the Hesketh Family of Formula I Grand Prix racing fame in the Seventies.

 

Rufford Old Hall and  formal gardens

 

Inside Great Hall showing moveable screen

The day was fine so Janis and I spent the whole of Tuesday visiting the Hall and gardens, both of which were in fine condition and well looked after. Part of the former over the years had been demolished leaving just the medieval Great Hall intact. However the Victorian family added a wing leaving the fine property as it is today. The gardens of course at this time of the year are beginning to look at their best with all the flowers and shrubs coming into their own. In keeping with the rest of the nearby area there are masses of Bluebells in bloom in the wooded area.

 

Pale Lilac

 

Seed pod of the Dandelion

 

 

 

Carpets of Bluebells

 

Pink Rhododendron

 

Yesterday the weather was not quite as good, as it rained lightly for a lot of the day. We found a bus stop and caught a bus for nearby Southport. It was good to experience this Bournemouth of the north, designed and built during the Nineteenth Century as a holiday resort for the moneyed middle classes of mine and mill owners so they wouldn’t have to mix on the firms annual shutdown with their workers who all went by tradition to Blackpool instead. It was another good day out in spite of the weather and we enjoyed it.

Bluebells and Babies

In the title I use the word ‘Babies’ purely for the sake of alliteration. But more precisely what I refer to is the proliferation this year of Mallard chicks on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and Bluebells along its banks.

Since leaving Liverpool on Thursday 1st May we have seen plenty of the former all through each day; large families of little brown and black furry bundles all scampering about as fast as they can as our boats approach. Mother looks on approvingly but with a certain degree of voluble agitation as she tries to keep them all together. She knows by instinct that the fleet or convoy tactics that ships used during the War affords a better protection against predators than all of the large family being vulnerably separated.

 

Spanish Bluebell

 

Native Bluebell

 

Stitchwort

 

Wild Garlic

 

Stinging Nettle. It’s always a good year for that hardy plant

 

But even at one day old these young have a fully developed swimming technique that enables them to run almost across the surface of the water at great speeds though the little stubby wings, flapping vigorously, are no help at all at this stage. To me they all look completely identical with their distinctive markings and how the families, all vying for the same space, don’t get thoroughly mixed up I’ll never know. But mother seems to be able to tell and to rally her own family on all occasions when necessary.

 

Leaving Salthouse Dock

 

Wooden Schooner ‘Kathleen and May’ in Canning Dock

 

White Lilac

 

Pale Lilac

 

Along this waterway it has been a good Spring for wild flowers also, Red Campion and Bluebells in particular. Just before we arrived at Liverpool the lush green floors of copses and woods were carpeted with our traditional native variety but since leaving Liverpool the banks of the canal have been blanketed abundantly with the upright Spanish version. This has broader leaves and has the bell blossoms growing all round the stem as opposed to the them hanging all on the one side only of our drooping native variety.

Both are beautiful and good to see.

We had enjoyed Liverpool enormously but the time arrived for us to leave on a rather murky depressing day. It rained all morning as we travelled in front of the sparkling white Liver Building and through Waterloo and Stanley docks. Here in contrast the massive old and rotting lock gates that used to be so busy allowing deep sea ships to enter and leave the port were now quiet and looked so forlorn in their neglect. The be-weeded cobbled docksides covered in gull and wild geese droppings, the graffiti-ed walls of the tall warehouses with  their broken glass windows in rusted iron frames were all eerie with the smell of dereliction.

But clear of the four Stanley Locks leading up onto the Leeds and Liverpool Canal everything began to improve. The Sun came out at last and as the area became more rural so did our spirits begin to soar again. Liverpool City life for a few days had been wonderful but we were now re-entering the real paradise that we all do our boating for.

Nantwich Jazz Festival

A friend of Janis’s from Nottingham Ray visited us while we were passing through Nantwich on our way north earlier and stayed aboard for a couple of nights.

It was while we were there that we came across an advertisement for the Nantwich Jazz Festival during Easter weekend. Janis and I both said what a pity we wouldn’t be there as we are keen fans of that genre but Ray admitted that he was a fan too and invited us to join him in his motorhome for that weekend of hot music. We couldn’t refuse such an offer could we?

So the day after we arrived here in Liverpool, we set off on Saturday for Nantwich by bus armed with my bus pass and Janis’s goodwill. It was a long hard-bottomed journey and we had to change at Chester as well with an hour in between buses.

However this particular city is well suited to waste the odd hour and we spent most of it in the covered market where we came across a delightful stall selling farm fresh dairy produce with a vast choice of lovely cheeses and ‘Ancient Bread’.

The cheese samples were delicious while with the latter we were reassured on reading the wrapper that ‘Ancient’ referred to the recipe that had been used many hundreds of generations ago rather than to the age of the contents, which had only been baked together that morning. By the time we completed our read and taste we must have bought up half the stall too but as we hurried back, well loaded to the bus stop we were also very pleased with our purchases.

On arrival at  Nantwich we were pleased to note that the town was even more welcoming this time than on our last visit, induced by the spirit of Jazz that was emanating now from almost every one of the numerous pubs that this small town had to offer. There was also a very warm welcome from Ray when we met and two more friends from Nottingham Mel and Anne, who had decided to come independently to the festival.

 

‘Zoot Serious’ performing in the Market Place

 

Janis and Anne posing with Mr Zoot Serious

 

The N’Ukes ukulele band

 

‘Swingology’

 

We spent two nights in Ray’s luxurious motorhome while the time in between was mostly taken up with meandering from venue to venue guided by the printed programme that we had picked up previously. I had not seen any of the performers before but the standard was good and the acts ranged from the cabaret singer style suitable for the bar of the smaller pubs, right through to a swing octet and everything else on the way, including a Stephan Grappelli Hot Club of France type violin quartet, a traditional New Orleans jazz band, whose members were all older than me  but played magnificently nonetheless. it was all brilliant even though my ears suffered as a result of the heavily amplified rock and blues guitars in between.

 

Ray and the girls in between numbers

 

We five friends had a great and happy time together and Janis and I had a lift back to Chester on Monday with Mel and Anne who had travelled from Nottingham in the former’s car. Here we caught the bus and arrived back at the ships, reassured on arrival that the leisure batteries had been fully topped up in the meantime through the efficiency of our solar panels and that our electric fridges were still operating.

Arrival at Liverpool

In the end we entered Salthouse Dock in Liverpool before Easter and the seven little ships that had amassed in the meantime like bees around a honeypot at Swing Bridge 9 in Aintree were all surprised but nonetheless very happy to undertake this Good Friday Passage at short notice.

 

Flypast for our arrival at Liverpool

 

The ten mile journey was in two parts, the first being from Aintree down to the old terminus of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Stanley Dock and the rest being the new canal way from there, through many of the old commercial docks to the north of the city, past the Liver Buildings and the other two ‘Graces’, through newly built locks into Albert Dock and beyond at the pontoons in Salthouse Dock.

 

In Stanley Bottom Lock

 

Passing through Stanley Dock

 

Victoria Tower at the seaward entrance to Stanley Dock

 

Approaching the new ‘Sid’s Ditch’

 

the narrow Sid’s Ditch

Here at our mooring the top of the old dock wall looms ten feet above us and the ancient granite face is like a precipice making our boats tiny and insignificant. Close by on the quay, one of the old bollards fills me with nostalgia as I remember those old times arriving at Liverpool so many years ago now on Blue Star Line Ships after long and sometimes stressful ocean passages and the thrill of looping the eye of our first huge mooring line over one of these was quite emotional.

 

The front of the Royal Liver Building

 

The old and the new

 

The old Bar Light Vessel that I remember so well

 

Entering Albert Dock

 

Busy Albert Dock today

 

The ancient dock wall behind our floating jetty

 

The new Salthouse Dock

 

The docks are no longer how they were though. The old commercial warehouses are now museums, hotels and restaurants and the whole area, though unchanged physically for the most part, has undergone a complete rebirth.

But carefully the old has been blended with the new in a way that all has been updated with such sensitivity so that the Twenty First Century glass fronted buildings nearby, the giant ‘Liverpool Eye’, the hundreds of visitors, with the necessary ice cream vans and children’s amusements in no way spoil the overall and continuing picture that will remain Liverpool Docks.

We are very pleased to be here and temporarily part of it.

Temporarily, the end of the line

When we set out from Warwick at the beginning of last month, we had great plans of conquering the North. We had decided to take ourselves up the magnificent Lancaster Canal as far as we could get after visiting the beautiful City of Liverpool by motoring in front of the famous Liver Buildings along to the visitor moorings at Salthouse Dock.

For both these journeys there were aspects that needed to be booked in advance so after we arrived at Wigan last weekend, we called into the C&RT North West office on Monday morning hoping to set up both to fit into our previously and meticulously planned schedule.

We spoke to one lady first who gave us application forms for completing the Ribble Link, the short tidal estuary passage that boats have to make to pass from the Rufford Arm of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal to the southern end of the Lancaster Canal. We soon realised that we needed to book an exact time on a certain date in order to make this passage and looking at the schedule it was obvious that many other boats were wanting to do exactly the same thing. There were very few spots left for us to book going northwards within the next month and no dates available at all till September for making the return passage.

Now both Janis and I were looking forward to spending perhaps a fortnight in the Lake District while we were so close but also we had planned to be back in Birmingham by September so there was a necessary need to change our plans.

We decided to give up the Lancaster Canal idea and plan it (well in advance) into our next visit north. Instead we decided to concentrate our efforts on the Liverpool Canal Link Passage. Another lady helped us with this and we had yet another form to fill in.

Much better luck this time we experienced. However…..

The Link was closed at  the moment, only temporarily mind you, while one of the bridges en route was cleared of a pile of rubble that some third party had dumped therewith, making it unsafe for passage beneath according to the Health and Safety Executive.

So we decided to push on from Wigan on Monday hoping that the way would be clear for us by the time we arrived at our destination.

The weather was wonderful for the journey with bright Sunshine all the way and following the flat, lock free flood plain of the River Douglas was an absolute pleasure. I spied my first Swallow of the year perched on a telephone wire with his distinctive pointy tail and wings protruding well below the wire and all of a sudden there were so many multi families of Mallard in evidence the young, like little furry ping-pong balls, scurrying across the water so fast as to be almost running over the surface. Let’s hope that most of them survive through these early days of life from the keen notice of so many predators.

 

Part of Wigan Pier looking back to Trencherfield Mill

 

But on tying up here, near Swingbridge Number 9 at Aintree yesterday there is still no clearance beneath the bridge at Stanley Dock and it is now looking likely that we shall have to wait till after Easter before any further movement is considered.

 

 

A Turtle at Eli Meadow Lock

 

Mallard’s nest at Eli Meadow Lock

 

The blue bloom of Bluebells

 

Alert Jackdaw

 

Bluebells

 

Vulnerable Mallard family

Dunham Massey to Wigan

 

‘Roots and Wings’ at romantic sounding ‘Waters Meeting Junction

 

Approaching the Barton Swing Aqueduct

 

On the Aqueduct looking west along the Manchester Ship Canal

 

The head of the Duke of Bridgewater’s Canal at Worsley

 

The unusual ‘balance beam’ mechanism at Henshall Top Lock, Wigan

Dunham Massey Hall

On Tuesday night after a satisfying day’s run of more than seventeen miles from Runcorn, we moored the two little ships on the wide towpath opposite the National Trust Property called Dunham Massey Hall. It is the ancestral home of the Earls of Stafford and this year is an important one in its long history. For one hundred years ago the house was changed into a military hospital for the benefit of a total of nearly three hundred wounded soldiers, sent home on ‘Blighty leave’ from the Western Front.

 

The Front Aspect of Dunham Massey Hall

 

The Sculpture.
 Each concrete block represents a patient at the hospital

 

Though these men were well looked after for the whole period of the war by the nursing staff, medical conditions were still quite primitive, infection from wounds being the most difficult challenge in those pre-antibiotic days. Plenty of fresh air and massage of the limbs was the best advice offered then to recovering soldiers.

 

The scooter park in the garden

 

Blue Wood Anemone

 

Trinity Flower

 

 

Birches

Our mooring was barely half a mile from the Georgian house so we decided to pay it a visit expecting the run of the place to be very much to ourselves this early in the year.

 

Pink Hellibor

 

Pink Magnolia

When we arrived however, the large car park was already full and the booking hall absolutely heaving with people. What we had forgotten of course is that it was half term week and what a wonderful place Dunham Massey would be to take the children.

It was most instructional as well, as the house had been re-laid out as a war hospital very much as it was in 1914 including the operating theatre with all its primitive instruments and a fine group of excellent young actors, who, behaving like ghosts and quite oblivious to the vast amounts of visitors getting in the way all the time, re-enacted very harrowing scenes of what would have gone on then. I was moved enormously and each time that I found myself in one of these scenes, I had to surreptitiously reach for my handkerchief to blow my nose.

 

Quite unperturbed by my close proximity

 

Colourful Magpie

 

The weather was fine and the vast deer park and gardens were ideal for families and children to let off steam outside. Janis and I had lunch and then joined a conducted tour of the extensive Summer and Winter gardens abundant still with Spring blooms at this time of the year as well as many other flowers and trees that were completely new to me.

Six hours later we returned to the ships tired but wonderfully happy with the day.