It rained this morning, but once again by the time we were ready to leave it was once again dry. We had a lovely quiet night, no road noise, and little light too.
There was no wind when we backed out of the arm to the main Fens Branch. As I was going under the bridge a bloke on a bike stopped and said how pleased he was to see a boat up here. It turns out he is a C&RT Volunteer. Hopefully there will be more folk using it if it is just tided up a little. Having looked again at the old maps I can see that just through the bridge to the Stourbridge Extension canal there was an arm off just by the bridge that went and opened out into a large wharf that extended past Britannia Bridge, and was serving an Iron Works.
There was also another basin to the same iron works that was very close to the other one and this are what is left of that one.. They were both bringing raw materials as the wharves were served by trackways that took material to the blast furnaces and not slag to spoil heaps.
After a quick look I can't really find out anything about this producer of a one of the bricks near the top lock of the Stourbridge flight. There was a Richard North also producing bricks about 1885, maybe the son of E.P. It shows the carbon footprint of the bricks was much lower then, other than using coal to fire them that is.
The top lock was empty so it didn't bode well for a fast passage down the picturesque locks.
We had a couple of hire boats come up after about lock 3 or 4 so they were most welcome. They had started at the bottom at 0800. Those were the days
As we approached lock No.6 there seemed to be evidence of a little arm of the short pound. It seems like there was a lime kiln on the short arm.
When you get to Lock 9 you are gifted with the view down the flight that takes in the bottle kiln at Stewart Crystal as well as Dadford's and the Dock store.
The view back to Lock 10 shows just how close No.9 and 10 are. There is a tiny pound between them as at the Bratch Locks. The views are so good everywhere you look. Just a shame the sun isn't shining today.
The Stewart Crystal Factory shop.museum was open but we didn't stop today.
When we first came down here on 'Holderness' we cheekily asked the blokes building the houses next to this old flour mill if they had a spare scaffold board for a gang plank. They obliged and we still use it. I must say the new buildings are styled well to fit in with these buildings the original. Close to the bridge was another glass works and close to the camera is the flour mill.
I had forgotten to check my watch at the top and bottom of the flight so can only say that it was around two hours to come down the 16 locks that are always a pleasure. That is a drop of 145 feet and had great fun too. This year we did not turn into the Stourbridge Arm but continued a little way further.
I thought that Helen was leaving me as she was speeding away after the last lock, but just as I took the picture she came astern to wait for me under the bridge.
The River Stour was crossed by this aqueduct close to Wordsley Junction and it was pretty muddy after the recent rain. It is hard to imagine that it was literally the driving force for a large part of the industrialisation of the area.
We didn't go too much further, just until we saw a short length of armco opposite Primrose Hill and not under trees for the leaves to build up and the acorns to beat down on the roof at the slightest wind through the night.
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