Bridge 4W (Llangollen Canal) to Weston Arm - Montgomery Canal

Its Raining!

Turning onto the Montgomery Canal

Lovely Jess

Jess, Amy the Lockie & Jess's Owner

We are off down the Montgomery canal today for a few days and guess what we have had hot dry sunny weather for days but today when we have locks to do its raining, just our luck!  We had to be at the locks between 12 noon and 2pm so despite the rain we set off from our mooring mid-morning and moored up in the moorings by the locks.  There was four boats already there.  At about mid-day the lock keeper Amy turned up and said there was nine of us to go down and two to come up.

Coming into the staircase

Going from one lock

The Montgomery canal is partially restored and you can only navigate 7 miles at present. The canal runs for 33 miles from the Llangollen canal to Newtown, via Llanymynech and Welshpool.

to the next

Down she goes

There is a staircase of two locks and two single locks so Amy said she would bring the two boats up then we could all start going down.  One of the boats coming up was a single hander so they brought him right through but the other boat came up the two single locks and waited in the pound for us all to go down.  It was a slow process but eventually it was our turn and we were pleased the rain had stopped.

Leaving the staircase behind

While we were waiting for our turn, we chatted to the friendly chap on the boat in front of us who had a lovely dog called Jess, she was such a lovely dog and really friendly and lovely running around and seeing everyone.

Garden where dry dock used to be

Plaque on the lock wall

Amy was really good and helped me with the staircase lock which is quite deep.  We then did the next two locks on our own.  There is a house opposite the middle lock and the garden used to be a dry dock where the boat Cressy was built.  There is a plaque on the lock wall which says:

In the last lock

On the Montgomery

 'CRESSY' In the dry dock which formerly existed opposite this plaque the Shropshire Union narrowboat Cressy was converted for leisure use in 1929. She later passed to Tom Rolt who used it for his journey round the canals in 1939, the story of which was told in his famous book 'Narrow Boat', published in 1944. This inspired enthusiasts who joined with Rolt to form the Inland Waterways Association in 1946.

Lovely flowers on the bank

Monument by the lock

The end of the Weston Arm

We chugged on along the canal and came to the Weston arm where there are services and visitor moorings so we stopped there.  This branch was originally built as part of the main line of the Ellesmere canal to take traffic from the River Mersey at Ellesmere Port to the River Severn at Shrewsbury.  It never reached Shrewsbury terminating in the small village of Weston Lullingfields.  A Wharf along with four lime kilns were in the village.  Due to a breach in 1917 it was eventually closed and just a small section still exists.

Weston Arm

We had a walk in the afternoon to the end of the Weston arm which is not far and then we walked to the next lock, Graham Palmer lock.  It is named after Graham Palmer who was an enthusiastic supporter of the restoration of this canal and a past leader of the Waterway Recovery Group.  There is a memorial stone to him by the lock.

We then walked back to the boat and sat on the benches near the boat for a while as it turned out quite a nice afternoon weather wise in the end.

We are staying here tonight then moving on tomorrow to explore this new canal.

Moored in the Weston Arm