Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Knighton has a conservation area around the wharf, which served the 1911 factory where
Cadburys received milk from dairy farms by canal, being one of the first users of motorised
canal craft. The community has the distinction of having been absolved from paying rates by
Charles II, a benefit that was not rescinded until 1990.
For 3km the canal is at the county boundary, but is on the Staffordshire side as if trying
to dissociate itself from its name. Beyond Old Springs Hall is a wharf with stone and brick
buildings of 1837, which has stone mullioned windows.
The five locks of the Tyrley Flight include two set in a red sandstone cutting, not unique
but unusual and attractive with ghostly assistance on the middle lock. Pine trees and gorse
flank Peatswood. Opposite is Tyrley Castle. An aqueduct crosses Coal Brook and another
passes over the River Tern, both as streams here.
Beginning with the Talbot and including a garden with a clever Bill & Ben feature, the
wharf area at Market Drayton is particularly fine, forming the north-eastern extremity of the
town. Many of the town's houses are black-and-white half-timbered buildings from the 17th
and 18th centuries after a great fire in 1641. It has two gastronomic claims to fame: damsons,
and it is said to be the gingerbread capital of the world, using a recipe containing rum.
Robert Clive of India was born here in 1725. Among his exploits were carving his initials
in a school desk that remains here, building a dam to flood a shop that refused to pay protec-
tion money and climbing the outside of St Mary's church tower and perching on a gargoyle.
The church, built in the 14th century, was founded in the 12th century and has a fine Nor-
man doorway. There has been a street market since 1245 and an annual fair, which used to be
a horse fair with dealers coming from Wales.
The town is left with the A53 crossing Lord's Bridge before Tunstall Hall and Victoria
Wharf. The canal crosses the route of the North Staffordshire Railway's former line from
Market Drayton to Stoke-on-Trent and then is followed by the route of the GWR's line from
Wellington to Crewe, the canal having outlived both railways.
After all too short a visit, the Shropshire Union Canal leaves Shropshire for Cheshire, the
English county with a greater length of canals than any other. The 15 locks of the Audlem
Flight, the Thick, drop the canal 28m.
The A525 crosses at Audlem, where there is a Bridge Inn and old buildings at Audlem
Wharf. Audlem Mill is a craft centre and restaurant, originally a 1916 grain and animal food-
stuffs mill, with a cantilevered gallery over the canal on the second storey for loading nar-
rowboats. The wharf crane came from the local railway goods shed. The Shroppie Fly in a
former warehouse has the front half of a BCN Joey boat as its bar. The town has timber-
framed houses, a Butter Market, a market cross that has become a stone-pillared oak-beamed
bus shelter and the Gothic 12th century church of St James the Great, with its well-preserved
oak ceiling.
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