Maesbury Marsh

Today's Canals - Llangollen, Montgomery

The weather today was noticeably warmer, even more so than was forecast. For the most part it was sunny and rather warm.

Maestermyn Bridge just after our mooring today creates a rather tight double bend, best taken at the slowest speed possible!

For the next half an hour we continued to retrace our steps until we reached Frankton Junction where we turned right to begin our descent onto the Montgomery Canal. We have only been this way once before, back in 2009. 

Access is only allowed between 9 and 12 with a limit on the number of boats. This is largely the result of agreements reached when the canal was restored. At present we can only go as far as Maesbury Marsh, not quite 7 miles out of the total 35 miles. Along the whole length there are 17 nature reserves of various types. This restriction also means that the locks are manned and this time we found a volunteer on the bottom two Frankton Locks with the full time lock keeper looking after the initial two lock staircase.

We will try to get a better photo showing the staircase from below - it is not so obvious going down.

Each of these locks has, in addition to its name board, rather well kept flower beds.

Once through the flight we were immediately warned of a special  3mph speed limit - not much chance of us breaking that as we scraped the bottom much of the way.

After half a mile we arrived at he junction with the former Weston Arm, now just enough is left to provide space for a facilities block which we made good use of. 

The previous photo was taken from the next bride. Mike struggled (almost!) to get to the brow of the bridge as the approach was so steep! Plenty of vehicles have scraped the tarmac as they went over.

The first lock is named after Graham Palmer, he founder of the group that undertook much of the canal restoration.

The lock only changes level by about 380mm an was added during the restoration to take into account intervening subsidence.

Several trees have been blown over along the next stretch. Fortunately they have fallen away from the canal. We surmise that the strips of material hanging from the root plate were the retaining soft piling. Hopefully this can be repaired before any breach takes place.

Perry Aqueduct is surprisingly substantial.

This short arm to Rednal Basin is all that is left of a once significant industrial site - for much of its life it was a boneyard. It took in carcasses for a wide area, even from as far afield as Liverpool. The residue of fatty tissue was taken to `Port Sunlight to be used in the manufacture of soap. There was no road access to this site so everything came in and went out by canal. Until, that is, the arrival of  the Shrewsbury to Wrexham Railway. Two short sidings meant that the canal traffic soon ceased.

However, the main rail line remains in use today.

We took advantage of a good mooring just before the A5 where we had our lunch. Mike checked out the possibility of buses into Oswestry. Alas, we later realised, once we managed to track down and internet connection, that tomorrow is a bank holiday so none of the local buses are running.

There are three locks at Aston, with one of the nature reserves alongside - plenty of wetland and useful facilities for those wanting to spot the latest visitors. From here on, progress was much slower as we frequently touched bottom.

The bottom gates of the third lock felt rather the worse for wear - one has been given the 'cage' treatment which CaRT seem to have adopted in the past three or four years. Hopefully they will give aging balance beans a few more years of life at lower cost than a full replacement.

We had planned to go as far as the limit of navigation but, approaching Maesbury Marsh we saw one space at the start of the first visitor mooring which we opted to take rather than risk going on much later in search of somewhere for overnight. Alas, the bow could make it to the bank but the stern is well out. A couple of boats passed a little later so at least we have not caused a blockage!

7.4 Miles - 8 Locks