Back to Bosley.

We were off by about 0930. It was gloomy but still and not cold, which for mid October is no bad thing.

As we passed over the steep Styperson embankment the railings stand out. There are 73 of them and each has two holes drilled in them. They were erected in around 1840 and are of sandstone and in the 1930 they had old mine shaft cables running through them and they were heavily greased. In fact you can see the grease leached on to the sandstone posts.

The winding hole at Bridge 20 was once a wharf known as Ryles Wood Wharf, and was a stone wharf for the local quarries.

This is Ryles Wood Wharf in the early 1900's. You can still see piles of stone and a wooden crane there.

As you can see it was still a nice clear day and no rain. I can't remember a boat passing at all, hence the nice reflection of the bridge.

By Bridge 25 is the North Cheshire Cruising Clubs own private mooring. With the stone edging on the left I assumed that there had once been a wharf there, but I can find no evidence on the maps. Nice little spot for the club though.

As we approached Bollington you get a good view of White Nancy above the town. It was built by John Gaskell of a nearby farm to celebrate Wellington's Victory at Waterloo in 1817. It once had a room inside with stone benches but the entrance is now blocked up. It is sometimes painted for special occasions.

Looking down from the aqueduct to east Bollington and the old workers houses.

I thought this was the largest terrapin that I had ever seen, but at the other end of the garden was a crocodile, so I guess it isn't real!!

I like the amount of stone along here and the sloping bridge too. On the way up I mentioned the buttresses and Zoe of Skidby, soon to be Cottingham, a reader of the blog mentioned she had a photo of them being built. This brought to the front of my brain a recollection of piles of stone and lots of work going on down here so maybe they are not original to the canal, or maybe not all of them at least! 

We stopped at Lyme Green Retail Park after Bridge 45 as Helen wanted to go and buy some Christmas presents that she saw they had in stock at Next. Just by the plentiful mooring I noticed the marker was 13 miles from Marple and 131/4 miles making it by chance almost half way along the canal.

Above Macclesfield is the Sutton Common BT Radio transmitter tower. It is built of reinforced concrete as it was to form part of the 'Backbone' Chain of towers that were to sustain communications for the UK and NATO in the event of a nuclear strike as it was designed to survive.

We weren't very ong in our shopping spree and so we carried on a little. We passed through the lift and swing bridges with no problem and moored about 15 mins away from the top of Bosley Locks ready for the following morning.

I'm not sure what came over me,guilt most likely, but as it was a dry, wind free and warm day I thought I would sand down and treat the many bits of rust and scratches on the st'bd side boot topping. The bit I did looks better for doing, but I'm not sure when I will get round to finishing the job though.