Wolverley Bridge to Stourton Top Lock, Stourbridge Canal

So, just as we finished our breakfast this morning this C&RT Notice dropped into our inbox!

The notice says that the river was now open from the next lock down from Stourport to Worcester then closed from there for 17 miles to Upper Lode Lock. Hmm! What should we do?

If we turned round and headed back to Stourport the river there was almost certainly still going to be in the red at the locks today. We decided to give the Lockie at Lindcombe Lock a call. He chatted away to Mick. The flow was still quite strong but we would be able to navigate our way downstream to turn onto the Droitwich Canal, with care. But should we have carried on to Bevere Lock half a mile further south the Lock Keeper wouldn’t let us through to get to Worcester, as the levels were still too high. So either the C&RT notice was wrong or the Lockies on the ground were telling porkies! We decided to believe the chaps on the ground. He said that the level may have dropped enough by tomorrow to get to Worcester or it might take a couple more days, river levels are not an exact science.

It didn’t take us long to make our minds up. We were going to continue going the long way round, if the weather forecasts are correct and there will be little rain then the levels should be fine by the time we reach the river again and we won’t have got bored of twiddling our thumbs.

Last night we spent a bit of time trying to find a suitable place to meet up with Finesse on our route. Heading towards Stratford didn’t come up with anywhere suitable that we’d be able to reach comfortably, but heading towards Worcester gave us two options. So that was our route sorted. The next few days we have to keep up with our plan so as not to fall behind.

We pushed off and soon had reached the next winding hole, we went straight ahead not wavering in our decision. The day was cold and grey again, damp hung in the air even though it didn’t rain.

This stretch will be filled with bluebells next month their lush green leaves appearing everywhere. On we climbed back up the locks we’d passed through three weeks ago. No one was ahead of us which made life easy, each lock sitting empty waiting for our arrival. It was too early for us to have chilled medication as we passed through Wolverely Lock, but I could see a young chap inside with a cone piled high with several scoops!

Today the air was filled with insects, gnats or mossies. At times it was hard to breath without inhaling them! We used to get asked if yellow attracted insects when we had Lillian, but it didn’t. Today dark blue most definitely did! Mick got so fed up with it that he lit a citronella candle and popped it in a guiding light to try to clear a small patch of air at the back of Oleanna.

After Hyde Lock we pulled in, after the house, opposite the grassy field for lunch. A purrrrfect mooring this, if only they had let me out! Tilly eyed up the huge trees, we don’t believe that she’d only be an hour in such a place so she remained in lock down.

On up Stewponey Lock and then a right onto the Stourbridge Canal. Up the four locks.

Between the third and fourth locks houses back onto the canal each with immaculate gardens. Sadly the house with the Aubrietia that floods over the walls hasn’t as yet had enough sunshine. A couple of dots of blue, but not the cascade  that we’ve seen before.

We soon found a suitable spot to pull in, away from too much traffic noise and not too close to Wordsley Junction. Tilly went straight out of course, only to get bullied by a local crow not too keen on her presence.

Tomorrow will be a standard day of climbing up into Birmingham. Plenty of locks ahead of us, at least we’re keeping busy!

10 locks, 6.77 miles, 1 right, 0 about turns, 1 lying C&RT notice, 1 Lockie chat, 0 chilled medication, 1 route planned and we’re sticking to it, 63763436378947364235272892927254 insects, 3 hours, 1 big black feathered bully, 2 many bikes, 4 muddy paws, 1 m mooring.

Severn River level at 9am today (at Bewdley a mile upstream from Stourport) 1.99m.

Yes we are still here!

Rain rain go away ……. oh don’t bother!

The rain falling this morning didn’t inspire us to get up and get going anywhere even though we’d made our minds up to go the long way round. We just didn’t want to get wet. So a leisurely breakfast and phone calls to Finesse took over. If Finesse were going to meet up with us in the next couple of days then we would stay put, if not then tomorrow we’ll head northwards and hope to find a suitable place to meet them.

After our calls weren’t answered I was just sending an email when Ricky called us back, he always does. A date was set for a visit from them next week, weather dependant. The weather is meant to dry up by the weekend, so fingers crossed.

Not sure why we bothered, but we did go to have a look at the river. It seems to be stuck within a band of two inches at the moment and that two inches is still three foot too high for us to navigate down stream.

With the river closed C&RT have taken the opportunity to do some brick work by the steps on the bottom staircase locks. Barriers surround the steps, you could still use the lock, but no one in their right mind would right now.

Treasure Island seemed to have a new inflatable on their arcade roof today (it was new to us but looked decidedly shabby like the rest of the place), a galleon ship with jolly pirates dancing and cannons. We had a walk up to Lidl for a few bits to keep us going until we reach Sainsburys in Kidderminster tomorrow then settled down on board for the rest of the afternoon.

Mick emptied the toilet and took the opportunity to measure the fan that blows away any nasty niffs. Bridget and Storm had said that the fan on Blackbird had lasted just about bang on a year, so we are wanting to get a replacement at the ready. The fan has a constant drone to it, so gets switched off at night. Mick has been looking into getting a silent one from Quiet PC.

Whilst we’ve been here there have been a couple of swans coming and going. The locals have told us that they are Father and daughter, Mum was shot by someone last year. They had been wondering if an incestuous relationship would start between them. Well today I could see them bobbing their heads in unison, a sure sign of romance. Then the deed was done and they both reared up creating a heart between them, so beautiful.

Paul. Thank you for your useful information. Your maps sound like they might be good for me. But please could you inform me as to what sort of M or m are marked here in Stourport, also the basin at Chester and at the massive field by Park Bridge on the Shroppie. Just wanting to check if your Mmms are calibrated for felines correctly. Thank you ,Tilly.

0 locks, 0 miles, 2 many days in one place, 2 fair weather boaters, 1 date set, 1 river still 2 fat, 2 cheese twists, 9.2mm fan, 1 romance blossomed.

Yep you guessed it, Stourport!

It rained all night.

With having use of the car Twingo until mid afternoon we decided to return to Droitwich and have another look for places to have a family meal. Thank you to both Debbie (NB Chuffed) and Jennie (NB Tentatrice) for your suggestion of the Gardeners Arms. We had a look at it on line this morning, their menu is vast! Glad I found the plain type version of the menu as the Arthurian version was a touch hard to read. So first we headed there to have a look. The pub has lots of rooms and outdoor areas, most of which were understandably not in use today. If they could relocate it to Bridgnorth it would be an ideal place for Sunday lunch, even if Tom and Jan (Waiouru) hadn’t been impressed with their roasts. A lot of choice, playground for youngsters and most probably a private room for us.

We then headed back across the river and canal to try out our second choice of restaurant from Friday. Bullocks sits at the end of the High Street, the two buildings were built around 1550-1600. It is now a bistro restaurant. Here the staff were very welcoming and not in our faces as much as the place we tried the other night. The menu has variety and the restaurant has a nice feel to it. We decided to have lunch to try out the food and both ended up ordering a fish finger sandwich, well we haven’t had one since Oleanna was being built. I had a gluten free version which meant I got one and a half sandwiches compared to Mick’s  large one. They came with chips and were very nice as they most certainly were not Birds Eye fish fingers!

Decision made, we booked a table. Just have to sort out the Sunday lunch now!

A visit to Waitrose for a few bits and a free newspaper and we headed back to the boat. Our time with our pastel blue friend was coming to an end. Earlier in the day I’d tried to get into a different car, but sadly the door was locked so I had to join Mick if I was going to get home! I was dropped off with the shopping and waved goodbye to Twingo. It’s been handy having a car for a few days, needless to say we won’t be dashing out to buy one!

The river level has gone up slightly today, gaugemaps hadn’t updated for a few hours so we checked the boards. Still about three foot to go. We now have no need to get to Droitwich, not for a month anyway. So thoughts are turning to going the long way round. Should we head to Worcester, hoping that the river level has gone down by the time we arrive? Or should we save the stretch between Worcester and Tewkesbury, (I do like good Tewkesbury!) for our return and head to Lapworth and down the Stratford Canal onto the Avon instead?

We’ll make our minds up in the morning.

Paul (Waterways Routes). Do your maps have suitable cat moorings marked? Tree locations and bunny rabbit holes would be good to know about, as well as areas of friendly cover. If they do I’ll make sure they buy the whole country!

0 locks, 0 miles, 2nd trip to Droitwich, 1 pub with soo many rooms, 2 fish finger butties, 2 pots of chips, 1 pot of tea for 2, 1 booking made, £10 shop for free paper, 0 DK WYS wool for socks (I can sniff a wool shop out at a 100 paces), 1 river still in the RED, 2 boaters making alternative plans, 1 availability check!

Stourport to Stourport

via Droitwich, Beverley and Bridgenorth

Normally when we hire a car we quite often end up with a van, sometimes we hire a van and end up with a car, but on Friday Mick returned with a car which was the actual plan. Only this car brought out his more feminine side. Okay so it was blue, but a Renault Twingo in powder blue is not at all masculine and with all the white trimmed interior! We have spent the weekend hoping that nobody we knew saw us.

Friday evening we headed to Droitwich (by Twingo), which should have been our destination (by boat) a week ago. We were wanting to remind ourselves about the length of stay on the moorings in town, how cat friendly they might be and have a check out of the restaurants. Mick has a significant birthday on it’s way so we want to find a suitable place for a family get together next month.

The canal enters Droitwich from the River Severn then a lock takes you onto a stretch of the River Salwarp, it was in the amber when we were there. The level here is important as there is a tunnel under the M5 which is quite tight height wise on the best of days! Our route may not necessitate limboing under the M5 in May, but you never know.

Fish and chips seems to be very popular around the town on a Friday evening, every shop having a queue, not quite the right thing for a family gathering though. A walk around town to look for suitable restaurants gave us a short list. We decided to try one out that we felt was the top choice, but by the time we left after some very nice food, we had decided to discount it. So it looks like we’ll have to return to check out the next one on the list.

Saturday morning came along with a lot of activity around the basin. Narrowboats were coming down the lock to fill with water and then return, a cruiser appeared reversing with two chaps wearing hard hats. We then noticed that there was a crane returning lots of cruisers to the water after wintering on hard standing. After breakfast it was our turn to move, not far, just over onto the proper moorings where we could plug in and leave Oleanna for a night behind a locked gate.

Once we’d moved, avoiding cruisers we packed our bags for a night away. Just as we were ready we could see that the biggest of the cruisers was descending the top broad lock, so we decided to check on the river and see what was happening before we left. The bottom broad lock onto the river had it’s top gates open and the bottom paddles raised, they were having to lower the pound between locks to get this monster of a boat out of the lock and under the bridge. It looked like there was only a couple of inches to spare width and height wise, good job they had plenty of people around to help.

The level board showed that the river had dropped around 16inches from it’s highest. So we left Stourport with hope that we might be able to move on after the weekend.

The roads round here along with not the best suspension on the Twingo made for a bumpy ride across the country. When we reached the Howden turn off on the M62 it was a very strange feeling to be carrying straight on and not turning to cross over the Wolds to Scarborough. We were on our way to Beverley. Our B&B at The Windmill Inn seemed to have it’s water supplied from the water point at Hillmorton, rinsing shampoo out of ones hair took rather a long time!

A bus ride out of town to an East Riding village with one of the best and biggest ponds in the area. Storm (NB Blackbird) was celebrating his birthday, the village hall was already filling up with a queue of people wanting to pass on their birthday greetings.

It was lovely to see them again and get to meet their family and friends whom we’ve heard so much about. Much of the time we didn’t need introducing as we were recognised from photos from Bridgets blog. We have even been offered use of an address should we need one in the next couple of months whilst we’re around the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal. Plenty of food, booze and conversation until the band struck up, then there was plenty of dancing going on.

The sound of the kitchen extractors just before 8am made sure we knew that breakfast would soon be served downstairs. This did mean that we were fed, watered, checked out and stood waiting for Boyes to open it’s doors at 10am. I wanted to get some curtain lining (I have no idea how the holes happened, one minute I was stood there the next I was facing the other way round and there were these big holes) to do a repair and have some spare should the need arise again!

The bells at the Minster were doing their Sunday morning warm up as we walked back towards the car through the pretty streets. It was a shame we couldn’t stay longer but we had other things we wanted to do whilst we had a car Twingo.

Back across the country to have another recky for Mick’s birthday weekend. This time to Bridgnorth, another pretty town along the River Severn. Bridgnorth sits high on a hill in between the river and the Severn Valley Railway (which will bring us here next month).

A good Sunday lunch was what we were looking for and ease of access from the Station. Peering through pub windows gave us two options for food and both could cater for a group. So we just need to check through their menus and make the decision. With that sorted some chilled medication was in order, I have a painful back at the moment and I needed some medication to help with the final leg in the car, honest!

Back at Oleanna all was well, Tilly had only managed to remove the cover from the overflow on the bathroom sink which was easily mended. Once we’d off loaded the car Twingo it was a walk down to check on the river levels. A little bit disappointing, the flow was a lot less fierce but the level in two days had only dropped by about 5 inches and seemed to be levelling out again. We need it to drop by another meter before we’ll be able to see green on the boards again.

0 locks, 250ft, 1 girlie car, 1 restaurant a bit too much, 1 board in the amber, 48hr moorings, 1 yoghurt pot, 1 board still in the red, 1 humungous boat, 1 very big shoe horn needed, 1 twisted back due to cat litter! 1 dribble of a shower, 1 bus, 1 jolly birthday celebration, 1 very good band, 1 taxi to Old Waste, 7.56am kitchen turned on, 2 cooked breakfasts, 12 bells, 1.5 lining, 1 dead phone, 1 high up town, 2 steaming engines, 2 pubs, 2 chilled medications, £10 meal deal from M&S, 1 fishing heron, 1 transfixed cat, 1 river still very much RED!

Stourport

A year ago today we handed over the last payment for NB Oleanna and in return we were handed her keys.

Originally our plan was to cruise for a full year once we had our new boat, built to our spec. This took us almost five years for our dream to come true, three of those living on NB Lillyanne (Lillian) our lovely yellow boat.

In the last year Oleanna and her crew have:

Cruised from Sheffield to Crick, Sheffield and Tinsley, Stainforth and Keadby, River Trent, River Soar and the Grand Union Leicester Section, where we moved on board fully from Lillian;

Down the Grand Union to London, along the Paddington Arm into Paddington, The Regents Canal, followed by the Hertford Union and the River Lee Navigation;

We retraced our steps back to the Grand Union and cruised her down the Hanwell flight, stopping short of reaching Brentford;

Back up to Crick to hand over the keys of Lillian to her new owners in July;

Then up onto the Oxford Canal, through Rugby and onto the Coventry Canal to Fradley where we joined the Trent and Mersey heading northwards;

At Great Haywood we turned left onto the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal turning right onto the Shropshire Union at Autherely Junction;

At Barbridge we turned onto the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union and then headed northwards on the Trent and Mersey to the Bridgewater Canal and then the Leeds Liverpool Canal;

Oleanna spent a full week in Salthouse Dock in Liverpool before we headed for the Rufford Branch meeting up with Bridget and Storm on NB Blackbird;

From here both boats crossed the Ribble link and spent most of August and a bit more of September than planned on the Lancaster Canal before we returned to the ‘Main Land’;

Back down the Bridgewater and Trent and Mersey until our plans changed, so we turned round and headed back northwards turning onto the Caldon Canal going to both Leek and as near to Froghall as we could;

Back over the Middlewich Branch stopping off to watch the fireworks on Bonfire night;

Up onto the Llangollen Canal where we spent Christmas and New Year;

A brief trip onto the Montgomery Canal;

Then back onto the Shropshire Union and to Chester and Ellesmere Port before turning round and working our way back to Autherely Junction where we turned onto the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal;

We have almost reached the end of the Staff and Worcester, just two staircases of two to go onto the River Severn.

Oleanna has ticked off two of the Seven Wonders of the Waterways, The Barton Swing Aqueduct and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. She’s been to the most northerly and westerly parts of the canal network.

We’ve welcomed family, friends, old and new on board. Seen sunsets, sunrises and numerous Kingfishers. Been up early to avoid the heat, been snowed on and iced in.

It has been a great year.

Now what?

Well ….  now you see, Oleanna still isn’t quite finished. She may have travelled a lot lot further than most boats in her first year, but she is still waiting to have her proper batteries installed. So have we had that year of cruising yet or not? We don’t think so. In fact the clock counting down that year hasn’t even started to tick yet!

Since 7th April 2017

Total distance is 1313 miles, 3 3/4 furlongs and 795 locks. There are at least 115 moveable bridges of which 12 are usually left open; 327 small aqueducts or underbridges; 41 tunnels and 3 major aqueducts.

This is made up of 524 miles, ¾ furlong of narrow canals; 645 miles, 6¼ furlongs of broad canals; 22 miles, 4 ¾ furlongs of commercial waterways; 32 miles, 4¾ furlongs of small rivers; 28 miles, 7½ furlongs of large rivers; 59 miles, 4 furlongs of tidal rivers; 375 narrow locks; 403 broad locks; 16 large locks.

Engine hours 1294.3

PS The River Severn peaked at 12.45am yesterday at 3.25m and is now on it’s way down. Hopefully we’ll be on our way again soon.

Although it is raining this morning!

Still Stourport

We woke to a bright blue sky shortly followed by being pounced on by Tilly. After a solid nights sleep on the sofa she was just about back to her normal self. We vaguely remember her annual injection knocking her sideways for a day last year too, but all was back to normal today.

After breakfast we made our now normal saunter down to look at the levels on the river and watch it zoom past. Yesterday the level had read just below the 11ft mark, but this morning it was 11ft 6. Hopefully a day of sunshine would help.

We needed a few things from town along with Tilly’s flea spot-ons that the vet had ordered in for her, so Mick headed off into town whilst I got the buckets out. The well deck and stern still needed a good wash. Today would also be a good day to get a coat of Woodskin on the wood above the morse control and on the stern locker lids.

So before I started to wash anything down I gave the wood a sand down. For sometime there have been a couple of patches where the finish had worn down to the wood. Once sanded and washed down I removed the locker lids, gave them a wash, cleaned out the gutters around the openings and washed the semitrad stern. When we first got Oleanna the locker lids were a touch too big and a lot of bumps and scrapes happened when ever we wanted anything from the lockers. This has now been remedied. So there is little point in polishing the paint work back here as when the weather is settled and we’re not chomping at the bit to be moving I will be repainting most of it.

The front bulk head had a thorough wash along with the starboard side well deck locker. There was too much stuff to move including the anchor to get the rest of it squeaky clean, so that will have to wait.

With a coat of Woodskin applied we were free for the remainder of the day to go for a walk.

Heading down stream along the river bank we were glad the level wasn’t an inch or so higher as this would have necessitated us wearing wellies. Houses along the path had the front gates blocked with flood barriers but as yet hadn’t brought out the ones to cover their front doors. The river zoomed past us carrying quite a bit of drift wood.

Some moorings came into view, with an assortment of boats. From narrowboats, to cruisers, to steel shells of old work boats (similar to a Leeds Liverpool Short boat, just bigger), to vessels even bigger.

By the wharf there were a couple of what we first assumed were Yellow Wagtails, their body movement and colouring giving us that idea. But checking later on they were actually Grey Wagtails, with a UK conservation status of red. We’ve had morning visits by the boat of Pied Wagtails that have kept Tilly amused in the window, but they seem to be two a penny compared to the grey ones.

The river glistened as it zoomed past, red sandstone cliffs grew on the far bank. The orange buoys of the weir came into view, not much of a height difference today and hardly any noise. Here Lincomb Lock cut takes the navigation to the side. All the lights were red, hardly surprising! On the top side there is no pontoon, just ladders up the wall should you need to stop. These locks can only be operated by C&RT staff and have opening hours. You call or radio ahead so that they can set the lock for you to save having to moor up.

Despite the river being closed the lock is still manned. Today the Lock Keeper was sat in the sun chatting away to a chap from the Environment Agency. We had a good chat with them both. She was not looking forward to getting to Holt Lock tomorrow as the road is cut off by flood water at the moment, so she would have to wade there. The Environment Agency chap had been along the Severn and Avon today, at Tewksbury (I do like a good Tewksbury!*) the world seems to be under water. He and the other Environment Agency staff are trying to work out how to remove a lot of the debris that is being washed down stream and getting caught on bridges and weirs. The good news was that the river had peaked in Shrewsbury and they were expecting it to peak in Stourport later in the day, with the river reopening, they hope, on Sunday or Monday if there’s no more rain.

We’d decided on a different route back away from the river. Across a bridge giving us a great view down the river and then the path hugged the red sandstone cliff into a static caravan park. Mick had the local O/S map up on his phone which showed a footpath leading out from the park, but large hedges and caravans stood in our way no matter where we looked. This had happened the other day too, north of Stourport where an estate had been built with no gaps for the footpath still to exist. So we had no choice but to carry on through the park where we tried to find the path again, still no luck.

So a stretch of main road before we found a path again. This however was not the nicest of paths. The locals it seems have gardening/tree clearing businesses and feel that it is okay to dump any waste on this waste ground, aptly named! At least branches and twigs are natural things to dump, but there were plenty of washing machines and general rubbish as well. Not the most romantic of walks back to the boat.

0 locks, 0 miles, 3.235m at 7pm, 1 hire boat, 1st coat Woodskin, 1 very creaky locker, 1 river walk, 1 Lockie, 1 Environment Agency, 3 to 4 days wait, 0 footpath, 1 filthy footpath, 17 broken bottles, 5738 ring pulls, 3 washing machines, 8m hose, 623 plastic bags, 400m of branches, 1 bright sunny day, 1 bright jolly cat, 4 flee treatments on top of the bathroom cupboard!

* ”I do like a good Tewksbury!” is a line that has stuck in my head from Knights in Plastic Armour written by Rob Shearman that I designed in Scarborough in the late 1990’s, a story centred around a battle re-enactment society. Rob Shearman is known for having written ‘Dalek’ which has the first appearance of the Daleks in the 21st Century revival of Dr Who. I apologise now as when ever Tewksbury is mentioned, I do like a good Tewksbury! I just can’t help myself.

Stourport

How Rude! I’d kept their toes warm in bed (as usual) whilst they sat drinking tea, had a couple of crunches of my morning dingding and just settled down for my morning snooze when along she comes and puts me into my Escape Pod. I don’t normally need encouragement to go in, I really quite like it in there, just so long as the door is left open! This morning the door was zipped closed!!!

I remember this happening several time before and is normally followed by quite a stressful day. Last time I was popped in the front of a large box, next to her and Tom . It rumbled. The outside moved in front of us not to the side as it does on Oleanna and it moved a lot lot quicker! Today there was no big box for us all to sit in, I was just walked past lots of the noisy smelly boxes all moving the outside with us all in it. No matter what I said it just didn’t stop.

Last time when the outside stopped moving I had a new inside, a new boat, worth all the stress, very exciting! This time it didn’t look like that was going to be the case. If it was a new boat then I didn’t want it as it was steamy and full of stinky panting woofers!!! Tom took me back into the outside whilst the woofers disappeared. After a while we came inside again and went through a door. Here my Escape Pod was opened up so that I could meet a man and a lady. They were both quite nice, she cooed and he gave me strokes and a good feel all over. He tapped on the computer, said how good and sharp my teeth were (all the better for murdering with), how shiny my coat was (to catch the sunlight), how much of a skinny minny I am (it’s all that tree climbing I used to do before we came to this Stourport place!). All of this was very good. He then jabbed my neck with something sharp, I started to be concerned.

Tom mentioned about the tear I often have in my eye, the man had a look. He then did that funny thing of rolling my eye ball around and put a big blob of BRIGHT YELLOW stuff in it. I’d liked him before he did that! Then he looked at my bottom a few too many times. Eventually he let me go so I went to see what I could see out of the window away from him. But this was all frosty like our bathroom window and there wasn’t even a chink to breath fresh air through.

They all stood around and chatted, the man had a look up my nose and said something about maybe having had flu when I was little. My teary eye doesn’t bother me, it actually gets me lots of attention when I sit in the window. With a couple of packets of stuff we went back into the other room. Here they stood and chatted again for ages! What could be so important? I just wanted to get back home now.

The outside on the way back was different, the canal, a little less noisy.

Throughout the day I started to feel a little bit ‘off colour’, she said. I agreed, when I looked through just my right eye I was very very yellow! The sofa and my bed beckoned where I stayed for much of the day. This evening it has been really hard to keep all four eyelids open, the inner ones just want to close. Maybe when they open again the world will be less yellow and I’ll have a new boat. Night night.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 vets appointment, 3 stinky woofers, 1 stupid boy! 1 check up, 1 injection, 4 pills, 4 spot ons (to collect tomorrow), 1 yellow eye, 1 passport stamped, 12 more months of shore leave granted, 0 new boat, 1 new mooring needed now.

Stourport

A bit of history whilst the river still rises!

Stourport began to grow around the canal basins at the Severn terminus of the Stafford and Worcester Canal, which was completed in 1768. In the following years and with the connection to the Birmingham Canal, Stourport became the principal distribution centre for goods to and from the West Midlands. The canal terminus was built on meadowland, first called Stourmouth, then Newport, the final name of Stourport was settled on by 1771.

The population of Stourport rose from about 12 in the 1760s to 1300 in 1795. Over twenty years the town grew from one house to several streets and as the trade increased towards the end of the century it is said to have double in size over a two year period.

Many fine Georgian buildings surround the basins, the finest is the Tontine. The Directors of the Staffs and Worcs Canal Company decided to have their headquarters and Commercial Hotel at Stourport, overlooking the River Severn. It opened in 1788 and was the Canal Company at its elegant best. 100 beds and a ballroom, business was conducted here followed by lavish meals containing only the very best meats and wines. However the large dividends that paid for everything came to an end with the coming of the railway in 1862 and by 1880 only a small inn was all that was left, the remainder of the building having been let out as houses.

Today £220,000 will buy you a slice of the Tontine, now a three bedroom house looking out over the basin.

There are five canal basins in Stourport. The two larger basins – the Clock Basin next to the Warehouse with its clock tower; the Upper Basin from where the canal heads towards Kidderminster; the smaller Lichfield Basin surrounded by a modern development with non-accessible moorings; the Lower Basin forms part of the broad beam canal structure enabling the larger and wider trows to gain access to and from the port from the River Severn, and finally the Engine Basin adjacent to the Engine House which once housed a steam pump that was used to pump water into the Basins helping to maintain an adequate water level. In 1781 a second link to the river was built with two pairs of staircase narrow locks. Today the street lights echo the shape of the cranes that once used to surround the basins.

The Warehouse building is the oldest in the Basin, built around 1770 when the canal and basins were being constructed. The clock in the tower is over 200 years old and was funded by 71 subscribers who raised £247: 16s: 0d around £6000 today. The clock was built with one large bell, another two were added to mark the quarter. Luckily for us it currently only chimes the hour, quite quickly, but every hour! The dials are now fiberglass replicas the original cast iron faces have been beavered away for safe keeping.

The hustle and bustle that was once all to do with transhipment of goods has been replaced with a day trippers, Stourport is now a destination for those from the Black Country. Cars speed round and through the town, crossing a road can take some time! Treasure Island, a funfair at the side of the Severn looks to have seen better days and no matter how much it tries to attract your attention with it’s flashing lights and flags we’ve only noticed one pair of legs spinning around at height since we’ve been here. Ice cream, arcades, take aways, music and barbers seem to fill the streets. It’s really Blackpool-on-Severn.

There are several websites with interesting information about Stourport. The most interesting I found to be Unlocking Stourports Past. Here unlisted buildings have been recorded, maps of the town through the ages and tales of the people who lived here. All very interesting. Just click on the door to enter.

0 locks, 0 miles, 2.563 river level and still rising!