Day 23 - Kidsgrove to Congleton

After a longish wait to fill up with water at Red Bull services and a so-so lunch at the nearby Red Bull Hotel we just managed to sneak through the final lock before turning onto the looping aqueduct back over the Trent and Mersey which leads to Manchester and the north via the Macclesfield Canal.  Two CRT workmen in a work barge told us that they were about to close the lock for essential repairs to the gates.

Blue Adeline at Red Bull services

Avoiding the work barge and making the tight right hand turn under the bridge into the Macclesfield turned out a bit tricky for Jan steering Blue Adeline and Pete had to jump off the bow and pull her round.  Then after a short and narrow section, another right hand turn and we were on the aqueduct itself, looking down on the canal beneath.  In a little while, the picturesque Hall Green stop lock with a rise of just 1'.

Mike on Romajech at Hall Green lock

Jane working the lock

The Macclesfield was one of the later canals to be built, completed in 1831 and just over 26 miles long linking the Trent and Mersey in the south to the Peak Forest Canal in the north.  The Macclesfield Canal Society have a comprehensive website giving the history including a fascinating contemporary account of the opening ceremony.

A feature of the canal are the elegant 'snake' bridges, built in stone and designed to allow horses to change towpath from one side to the other.

Snake bridge, showing towpath route for horse - up right hand side, over bridge and down left hand side without detaching rope

A few miles north of Hall Green is the arrestingly gothic Ramsdell Hall, just to the right of the canal - in fact the hall's railings run along the towpath seeming to enclose the canal within the hall's grounds.

The canal skirts the western edge of the Peak District and lower Pennines and appears to be travelling uphill, because the views all around are of hills, particularly Mow Cop and The Cloud.  The major rise of 118' isn't until the Bosley flight of 12 locks north of Congleton.  This is where we planned to separate, Romajech continuing north to Manchester and the Bridgewater Canal back to Church Minshull and Blue Adeline returning to Kidsgrove and through Harecastle Tunnel en route to Sawley.