Junction after Junction.

 It had rained right through the night and with the gloom it seemed not to get light until well after 07:00. Welcome the autumn for real. It was drizzle interspersed with showers until around 10:00, when the sun came out. So we let go and were off.

The sun lit up the trees along the cut towards Dinningsdale Bridge. Another view of autumn was the fire still going this moring.

By Dimmingsdale Bridge is a little moorings set off the main line. There was been a wharf her for a long time to cater for the local villages and farms, but the cut is actually behind the wharf and is modern taking advantage of an area of swampy land as indicated on old maps.

Just before the third lock of the day is Compton Bridge. Where the blue boat is moored was an old wharf that served some lime kilns just set back from the canal. By 1885 it was finished, but the wharf continued. When we first came down this way there was a chandlers called Limekilns trading here.

I thought I had better take a picture of one of the circular by-washes that are a feature of the Staffs. and Worcs. I have resisted long enough. I suppose you are able to have a greater length of  weir for a smaller area.

Helen enjoying the sunshine at Compton Lock. It seems that research has found that this was the first narrow lock that James Brindley ever built. It was rebuilt in 1986 though.

On the left is the bridge over the entrance to Double Pennant Basin. This didn't appear until around 1900 and seems to be a nice secluded mooring these days with room for a couple of boats.

The bottom lock of the Wolverhampton 21 seems quite inviting and countrified but is the start of a hard slog up to the Birmingham Canals. It was opened in 1772 a few months after the Staffs. and Worcs. had opened. In the Parliamentary Act for the construction of the Birmingham Canal to the other canal there was a clause that the S&W could build the lock here if the BCN were slow, and Bill the BCN anyway. They nearly had to in the end.

The sun shining on the Aldersley Bridge and its reflection make a very picturesque view and much relief for those coming down the 21 locks I should think. 

There is a plethora of bridges between Aldersley and Autherley  Junctions. The first two are railway bridge. The first was a link line to join the Kingswinford Line to the GWR that seems to have built during WWII. The 2nd is the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Line that was much earlier. Next is a modern road bridge and then a couple of sets of pipelines. I notice that they are enclosed. I never look up when passing under them as they are carrying the raw material to the works on the left bank. The sewage farm. Then there is Oxley Moor Bridge.

I wonder if Dulux, or other paint company, would sponsor the painting of the Autherley Junction Bridge white once again. It would certainly make it more of a feature to augment the lovely finger post at the junction.

Helen had just been saying that she hadn't seen any heron's, ducks, coots or moorhens, or a kingfisher for a long time. Almost as soon as she said it we were quickly ticking her list off as we spotted them just before and after the junction. Last on the list was the kingfisher that followed us for a while, even allowing us to get a photo of sorts.

Pendleford Rockin' narrows making an interesting part of the trip as the canal cuts through a bed of sandstone. It is very shallow and narrow, and there is no hurrying through. Passing places are provided along it as there is no room for two to pass otherwise. I wonder why they saved money here, only cutting it narrowly when further south when passing through the same sandstone they carved a double channel and locks out of it?

We went under the M54 and carried on until Cross Green where we anchored up near the pub of the same name. It had got very dark and cool and looked like it was going to bucket it down. But it didn't.