Well that was Atherstone.
A bustling little town with an excellent butchers, a handy fishing tackle shop and Dads n' Lads, a real twopenny all off barbers, presided over by a large, jovial lady who is a mean hand with the electric trimmers. I am now well shorn and beard trimmed, all for seven quid, pensioners rates. Added plus, she doesn't talk about football. She was proud of the fact that they now have a Costa Coffee, reckons that is a sign that the town is on its way up.
This morning we winded at the top of the locks, that is one tight winding hole, Jill had to take the front line and help pull Armadillo round and then we headed back the way we came.
Stopped at Hartshill for water.
It was the maintenance yard for the Coventry Canal Company and most of the buildings are still there, although the smithy and the chippy's shop are no longer in use. In fact there is now a cookery school in one of the buildings. One thing that doesn't change is the clock over the covered dock, it still says 0910 as it has done for years.
There are a couple of spectacular spoil heaps from the old quarries along this stretch, I don't know if this one has a name but
this one is known as Mount Jud and is the waste from Judkins Quarry. A former roadstone extraction site that apparently has some very interesting minerals, does calcite or mottramite ring a bell? Me neither but I'm sure the geologists go into raptures about it.
We are now back where we set off from on Wednesday,
above the Anker Valley.
Atherstone locks close on Monday until the twenty-first of December as part of the winter stoppage program so the canal is busy at the moment with boats wanting to get through before it starts. Not us though, quite happy loafing about for a while.
Watch this space............
No comments:
Post a Comment