Tuesday 16 June 2009

Two letters from "home"


On 3rd April we cruised from Loughborough to Shardlow. After a week of seeing few boats - and even fewer moving - we found ourselves looking for somewhere to tie up. We got a good spot opposite a boatyard: that's Shadow on the right, by the warehouse. This is probably the nearest our boat's name gets to a canal place: just insert an "R" and an "L".

The nearest I'd been on the Trent and Mersey was Fradley, so, at last, I would be completing the whole of this canal. Shardlow is full of canal interest with its pubs and warehouses. An overnight stop simply isn't enough: one day I will return. We didn't even have time to look round the museum.


Two more letters, R and D, feature on something considerably older than our boat. This is one of the original cast iron mileposts made by Rangley and Dickson of Stone. Phil Myott has a website devoted to these mileposts, yes, there's a photo of all 93 of them.

2 comments:

Vallypee said...

Lovely spot to moor up. What is that old building next to Shadow? Is it the museum? And what was it before? I like the old milepost too. So nice to see these touches of history still in use!

Halfie said...

Yes, we did well mooring there. We were next to one of the many old warehouses in Shardlow (don't know what this one was used for); I believe the museum was in a warehouse opposite.