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| Leaving Norbury on a wet Monday |
We are moving on to Gnosall, pronounced 'Knows All', this morning and guess what it
was raining, but we still decided to go as we don’t have that far to go.
We set off along the canal and stopped at the services to
fill up with water, etc. then went on our way.
You say poor Kev having to steer in the rain, but not really as we were
able to have our back cover up for most of the journey as the bridges are high and on this section
there are not many overhanging trees so he didn’t really get wet!
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| Flood gate at one end |
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| Flood gate at the other end |
We chugged along Shelmore Enbankment which is a mile long
and was the source of endless grief and expense to the Birmingham &
Liverpool Junction Canal Company in general and to Thomas Telford, the
engineer, in particular. It was an
enormous task anyway to shift the millions of cubic feet of earth to build the
bank; but while the contractors struggled to complete it, the bank slipped and
collapsed time and again. By early 1834,
Shelmore Enbankment was the only unfinished section of the whole canal. It was not until 1835, after 5½ years’ solid
work on it and well after Telford’s death, that the embankment was completed
and the Canal was opened as a through route.
There are flood gates at each end, to close off the channel in case of a
breach. These were closed each night
during World War II as a precaution against bombing.
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| Gnosall Village |
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| Gnosall Village |
We went on along the canal and soon we were at Gnosall where we
moored up. We had lunch then went for a
walk up to the village where there is a few shops, not many but it is a nice
walk. It was still raining but not very
hard.
We are staying here for a couple of days now as tomorrow we
are catching the bus to Newport and Stafford so looking forward to that and the
forecast is for a dry day, so fingers crossed they are right.
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| Moored at Gnosall |
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