Bart's Blog

A Very Narrow Journey

Menu
  • Contact Me
  • About Me
  • Travel
  • Lifestyle
Menu
View of hills and canal

Bosley Locks to Macclesfield

Posted on September 9, 2019September 10, 2019 by Steph

Wednesday 4th September

We are now moving from Bosley Locks to Macclesfield.  We are moving on today because of a couple of reasons.  The first reason is that we are on a 48hr mooring at Dane Aqueduct and time has run out for us.  The second reason is that we need to go find services and pump out!

We are at the bottom of Bosley Locks which is a flight of 12 locks in the space of one mile.  These locks raise the canal level to well over 500 ft above sea level.  We set off at about 10am and we were at the second lock when a volunteer lock keeper appeared.  His name was Ian, he was lovely and helped us all the way up the locks.  These volunteers are fabulous and always a welcome site – so thanks to you all.

It took a couple of hours and luckily the rain held off until we had just moored up – very lucky!  The services at the top of the locks were good and we had a nice chat to the volunteers while they had their lunch!

Top of the flight of Bosley Locks

Narrowboat on a canal
Heading for the first lock
Narrowboat heading into a lock
Paul’s on lock duty today
Narrowboat in a lock
I made it in!
A deer by Bosley Locks
Nice little view by the lock

Luckily we made it through the locks with no rain but the sky went very black so we decided to moor up.  We timed it perfectly as the heavens opened just as we got in.

Dog up at the hatch of a narrowboat on the macclesfield canal
Lovely mooring next to some woods

Thursday 5th September

We had a lovely cruise to Macclesfield today.  No locks today, just a couple of swing bridges.

Narrowboat on the Macclesfield Canal
Dog sat on the back of a narrowboat
Tilly in her usual position
View of hills and canal
Stunning view as we came through the bridge
View of Macclesfield Canal

We did think that we might stop at Gurnett Aqueduct but there were no spaces so we carried on and managed to get a mooring on the pontoons at Macclesfield.

Narrowboat on the Macclesfield Canal
Almost in Macclesfield
man steering a narrowboat on the macclesfield canal

We moored up for the day on the visitor pontoons and went for a look around Macclesfield.

Man on a narrowboat in Macclesfield
Our new moorings for the weekend

We found Tesco’s so we will be going there tomorrow for our shopping.  Macclesfield is a nice little town with plenty of shops, including a butcher and a nice little deli.  We also found a chippy and treated ourselves to a carton of chips each – delicious.  Macclesfield is a mixture of modern industry and old market town, with cobbled streets.  In the 18th century it was one of the leading silk producing centres.  There is a silk museum and Paradise Mill, which was once a handloom silk-weaving mill.

A cobbled street in Macclesfield
I love these cobbled streets
Cobbled street in Macclesfield
The Hovis Mill on the Macclesfield canal
This is the Hovis Mill – now converted into up-market apartments
Gates to the Hovis Mill in Macclesfield

The Hovis Mill in Macclesfield was built in the 1820s and was the birthplace of the famous flour.  The canal played an important part in transport to and from the mill, as can be seen from the loading bay at water level.  After Hovis moved their milling activities to Manchester, they continued to use this mill as a print works for their packaging and publicity material.

After our walk around town we went into the canal side pub called Puss in Boots.  It was a bit of a disappointment as they had no real ale on tap!

The Wharf however, turned out to be a very good pub. It is dog-friendly, it has a very good choice of real ale and a very friendly and helpful landlord.  We went back on Friday night when there was a live band on and we had a great night.

A pub in Macclesfield
Great pub
A bar in a pub in Macclesfield
Love this bar

Friday was wet and miserable.  We did the shopping at Tesco.  It was only about a 20 minute walk, and we had our granny trolley to carry it all home in.

Man with a shopping trolley
Don’t you just love our granny trolley!!

Saturday was spent cleaning and be polishing  Hang Loose (well, one side of it – Paul has already done the other side).  We have really enjoyed this mooring.  First time on a pontoon!

And Sunday we were on the move again …..

 

Dog sat at the back of a narrowboat

See you in Bollington xx

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

8 thoughts on “Bosley Locks to Macclesfield”

  1. Kez says:
    September 11, 2019 at 7:05 pm

    Oh we’d love to go narrowboating! I did it as a child with my family a few times but I’d love to do with with my husband ?

    Reply
    1. Steph says:
      September 11, 2019 at 7:12 pm

      You should do it xx

      Reply
  2. LaZiaRo says:
    September 12, 2019 at 8:56 am

    I ‘ve been following your journey for quite some time. I love to see the places you pass by and dock. And I love cobbled streets too! 😀 I was wondering, do you have a fixed plan day by day, or do you improvise your staying depending on what you like when you get there? Can you travel by night?

    Reply
    1. Steph says:
      September 12, 2019 at 9:11 am

      Hi thank you ? we do have a rough plan but we definitely improvise a lot – it depends on how long we can moor for – it can range from 1 day to 2 weeks – and yes it does depend as well on how many walks there are to go on and what there is to see and visit. You can travel at night – we haven’t travelled in the dark but have had some lovely cruises in the early evening xx

      Reply
  3. Tanushree Tyagi says:
    September 12, 2019 at 9:04 am

    Looks like you had a great time. Love the article and the pictures.

    https://styleuboost.com/

    Reply
    1. Steph says:
      September 12, 2019 at 9:07 am

      Thanks – yes it was fab x

      Reply
  4. Rachael says:
    September 12, 2019 at 10:57 am

    I love the slow/narrow approach and that you can discover so many wonderful and unexpected things on the way! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
    1. Steph says:
      September 13, 2019 at 7:34 am

      I know – it’s amazing – we’ve see. So many different places already xx

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Recent Posts

  • Still Cruising Along The Leicester Ring
  • The Leicester Ring – Part 2
  • The Leicester Ring
  • Part 3 of our Journey along the Caldon canal
  • Cruising Along the Caldon Canal

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,120 other subscribers.

Archives

  • January 2021
  • September 2020
  • July 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • June 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
© 2021 Bart's Blog | Powered by Superbs Personal Blog theme