After a cold but quiet night we walk up to a nice sunny day, but with a frost. I nice frost even makes a muddy towpath look good.
The cut that went down to the River Trent left the canal by the bend in the canal to the right. The buildings in the centre are the toll house and amenities, along with the little wharf that was there too.
This is the point that the Derby Canal Joined the Trent and Mersey Canal and then a little behind me is the cut down to the Trent. The Deby and Sandiacre Canal Trust keep working towards reopening the canal to Derby and out the other side to the Erewash canal. HS" did look liie it may scupper things but a revision saved the plans, plus who knows what will happen with the HS2 in the future, or anything that is decided using politics to be honest.
This Tudor building over looks a sports ground called the Cuttle. It was used as a grand stand it is thought. What for is not sure, jousting, bull baiting or just bowls are some of the ideas. It was part of a Tudor mansion for the Harpur family but the rest has disappeared since the Civil War. The Harpur family left to take up residence at Calke Abbey. I love the chimney myself.
New gates last winter resulted in my first new logo plaque being sighted. We stopped when we found a nice mooring in Shardlow and naturally head off to sample the pub.
We crossed the bridge and entered the New Inn, which was just the first we came to. It seems that it was built in about 1799 and formed part of an industrial area that formed after the Trent and Mersey came through. It is obviously an old building with lots of bit stuck on the side. As you can see the windows haven't been replaced always as sympathetically as they may have been. There are several rooms or areas, and there was a lot of diners too. There was a good open fire inviting us in too. We had no plans to eat but were seduced to stay and sample the home cooked lasagna and chilli which gave me the excuse for two pints! They had Marston's Pedigree and a beer from Derby Brewing Co. which I tried. I didn't make a note of it, presumably as I was too busy eating. I did note that it was a pale beer, slightly hoppy but pretty nondescript! They always have a Derby Brewing beer on it seems. Luckily the second pint I had was a Titanic Brewery.
Titanic is a Burslem beer with a story. Kieth Bott started out as an apprentice brewer at the Stoke Brewery. Years later in 1985 with his brother Dave they bought the place and started brewing 7 barrels at a time. They are now up to over four million pits a year! I have only once had a bad pint and that was at a beer festival where it wasn't/couldn't be kept properly. It seems an odd name for a brewery about as far away from any seaside as you can get. It is actually named for Edward John Smith who canme from Stoke on Trent and was the Captain of the Titanic on that maiden voyage and went down with his fated ship.
This beer is right up there towards the top of my favourites. It is a dark beer, and at first glance looks as black as the night, but hold it up to the light and it can be seen as a dark red beer. At 4.9% the taste of many beers may be overpowered by the alcohol, but not this one. It pours with a deep cream thick head making a great contrast in the glass. Pick it up and you first get a whiff of the fruit that give a rich and sweet start to the tasting, later the hops come to the fore and you get a satisfyingly full mouthful of flavour. Even my wife has been known to taste this one, until I caught her and warned her to stick to her cider. (only joking by the way. I would have gone and got her one if she had really wanted!). If you are hovering at the bar, surveying the pumps, and spot just about any Titanic beer dive right in, especially if the Plum Porter in on. It is there biggest selling beer.
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