Spring is in the air, but not the sun!

 It was a quiet night last night, and even after the radio came on we managed to drop off to sleep again. Never the less we were away by 0930.

The Armitage Shanks building is one of those sights that I seem to take a picture of every time we pass. I love the curved building that wraps around the canal bend.

Helen jumped off for her exercise but there wasn't anything coming so we headed through the opened up Armitage Tunnel. There was nobody on the water point after the Spode Hall moorings so we pulled in and topped up. Never miss a vacant tap is our motto.

I have often wondered what this old complex of obviously old buildings was and today I have spent a bit of time tracking it down. It is just a bit closer to Rugeley than the basin, now hidden from the canal that sat at the bottom of the cable track from Brereton Colliery above. It was an iron foundry in about 1820 but by 1834 it was being used as a brewery and it was to be let in 1840 by brewers Yeld and Dawes Co. Ltd. The complex consisted of six workers cottages and a manager's house as well as the brewery and linked premised. It obviously had a wharf with the canal and right the other side was the Armitage toll road,

There was not one boat oored alongside Love Lane as we came into Rugeley. I have never seen it so quiet. We were stopping to get some items from Tesco so we had the pick of moorings. We didn't linger very long as rain was forecast and we were soon on our way. I have often wondered what this house, the one with the glassed in swimming pool by the canal. It seems that they are not heating the pool at the moment as it wasn't all steamed up as usual. No wonder with utilities priced as they are today. The building has a date stone of S E 1841. Having had a look at the old maps it seems it was part of the Churchdale House Estate. The big house was further away from the canal. This was a wharf. It seems that the stone block work on the bank to the right of the photo was the start of a wharf on the 1880's map there is a crane at the end furthest away from the building.

After the aqueduct and after Bridge 68 there is a winding hole. This was apparently a transhipment basin, as you can see it is very near the railway line. However on the 1879 it doesn't look as though there is any infrastructure associated with the basin, no roads, buildings etc. I wonder if it was just a wharf used for the construction of the railway and then not used as it isn't close to anywhere really. By 1900 it was definitely unused as the map indicates it is full of reeds.

This monumental vase is by the A513 and seems to be close by the site of the Oakedge Hall. It doesn't seem to appear on old maps so it must be fairly new. Oakedge Hall was demolished in 1694 and some of its remnants were used in the foundations of Shugborough Hall. Just by the house are four medieval fish ponds that must have been associated with the old hall. I wonder what this monument is. I felt sure I had found something about it previously, but not now it seems.

We caught up with a boat going up Colwich Locks but it gave me time to pop down the weed hatch to pluck off a dish cloth that I had caught going alongside. They stopped for water so we were now in the lead. As we passed Great Haywood Marina there was a bore driller. It seems that HS2 is starting its work here. There is to be an aqueduct across the canal and river in this area and they are undertaking ground investigations. There is also a gas pipeline that needs diverting it seems in this area.

As we entered Hoo Mill Lock I remembered last year when we had to call out RCR as I couldn't start the engine as the isolator switch had given up the ghost. Just as an aside. How many of you actually turn off your battery isolators, and if so when do you use them? Personally I have only ever turned them off when I have actually been working/changing batteries. There was a lovely carpet of cowslips just on the offside by the lock.

There were a few of these ducks about and I think they are Muscovy ducks. It seems that they are the only breed of domestic duck that have not descended from wild mallards. They have come from common wood ducks and roost in trees at night. They originate from central and south America and are really escapees from collections and are now considered domestic.

Spring is definitely in the air, with the leaves starting to appear on some of the trees. The canada geese and mallards are scrapping over mates and the swans are pairing off, or rebonding. We even saw a pair of swans on a nest which seems very early it feels, especially in the cool wind of today.

It seems anti spring that the beautiful velvet bulrushes are bursting and becoming so scruffy and untidy. I suppose though that they are scattering their seeds but they do look like a burst mattress found under a bridge. The circle of life!

From Great Haywood it had been spitting but it wasn't really getting us wet so we just carried on Hixon and Shirleywich where salt was extracted. There are a couple of arms still there that led to salt makers works. I have found an advert for saline baths in Hixon too.

An advert in the Staffordshire Gazette for May 1841. On the 1880 OS map there is a row of cottages between St Peter's Church and the Methodist Chapel called Bath Cottages and just next to them a building labeled BH (Bath House?). By 1900 the bath house building had gone, or at least got smaller so changed use.

We didn't go much further pulling up at Weston on Trent, and just in time as the rain got heavier for a time. We got settled for the night in the warmth of the stove.