Finally, Friends at Fradley.

 It seemed to be cold this morning but the thermometer tells me that it wasn't. The wind had gone down but when out of the lovely sun and in the wind it was bitter none the less.

Shobnall Fields moorings are a nice place with open views under the trees with dogs with their walkers, runners, cyclists and further on the little football players with their parents or guardians seemingly huddled together for warmth!!! and F'ing and blinding at their little darlings.

You get a better picture of the Marston's Brewery Bridge from this direction and get a sot of the entrance to the Shobnall Arm too. Shobnall Marina is on the original Bond End Canal. Before what became the Trent and Mersey Canal was built the River Trent was used for Navigation up to Bond End where there were warehouses etc. There needed to be a connection from the river to the new canal and the canal, just over a mile in length was opened in 1790. However the Grand Trunk Canal Co. wouldn't allow a connection so all goods had to be transferred from widebeam to narrow, or vice versa across a 'bar'. This continued until 1794 when it was taken away and a lock instated to take into account the levels. The River Navigation largely ceased by 1874 and the 1 mile from the Trent end was filled in leaving the Shobnall Basin. This became a transhipment basin with rail tracks around the basin until 1950's. Jannel Cruisers took over part of the basin in 1973.

Tattenhill Lock is pretty scenic as locks go. We had a been following the boat with the man with blue top but they seemed to disappear before the next lock???

Just above the lock I noticed the MR Railway boundary marker that can be seen just to the left of the tub. I was puzzled by this as I hadn't thought that the Midland Railway had been involved in the canal. It seems that the North Staffordshire Railway Co bought the Canal in 1847 to stop it's opposition to the building of the railway. The North Staffs had running rights on the Midland Railway's lines at one time, but there was no merger until 1921 when they were grouped in the London Midland and Scottish Railway. So where did this boundary marker come from?

I always take this photo as I love this little warehouse and crane at Wychnor Lock as we penned up on to the River Trent. It still seems counter intuitive to go 'up' onto a river, despite spending last year defying gravity on the Great Ouse and Middle Levels where it seems to happen all the time.

St. Leonard's Church at Wychnor stands proud above the River Trent as you pass. It has some 12th Century, mainly 14th and some 17th.and is Grade II*. Around is also an abandon village with several houses and an old hall with moat and fishponds etc. There is a nice walk from Alrewas to see it.

I can't thin of any further parts of the Trent that is now navigable above here where the Trent is used to get from Wychnor to Alrewas. If that is the case we have traveled from Trent Falls where it joins with the Yorkshsire Ouse to form the Humber to here. I always love these horse bridges to get over the river and tributaries etc.

Waiting our turn for the lock at Alrewas the local lads were leaping across the bye wash just to past the wait for me! There was one in and one out, but not much of a wait.

I'm not sure how long this has been on the gable end, but it looks very new. I can think of worse ways of spending lockdown.

And there he is, our most favourite Voluntary Lock keeper, and the reason that we have been putting the hours in as we wanted to get here whilst he was on duty as we haven't seen him for nearly a year. Plus he always has tea loaf for us! He excelled himself this time with a layer cake and two jars of jam, plus he bought us a coffee!! It was great to catch up with all his gossip, and drop the occasional line in too. Hopefully we will see him when we come back this way next month. We are moored up between Keeper's and Junction Locks tonight.