Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
rowboat workshops and there is a shop in the lock keeper's cottage, a pump in front, a tiny
Edward VII letterbox round the back and a dry dock on the opposite side of the canal. The
place has tremendous atmosphere.
In the village of Bunbury is Bunbury Mill, a notable 19th century working watermill, dam-
aged in a storm in 1960 but restored and working. There is also the 14-15th century church
of St Boniface.
Tilstone Lock has a lock hut that consists of a single circular room with a bowed wooden
front door to maintain the curve of the brickwork. At Tilstone Bank, the bank is used
by snowdrops, primroses and bluebells and there is an 1830s mill. The prominent heavily
timbered Wild Boar hotel on the south side of the valley is decorated with a range of flags
that suggest American tourists might make up a significant part of its customer base.
Wharton's Lock, where the Sandstone Trail footpath crosses, shows Beeston Castle at its
best. The castle was built from 1226 by Earl Ranulph of Chester after his return from the
5th Crusade, where he had been inspired by the impregnable hilltop strongholds in Palestine.
Built on Beeston Rock, it has a precipice 150m to the Cheshire Plain with the best castle
views in England, from where can be seen eight counties, the Welsh mountains, the Pennines
and the Wrekin. Richard II was supposed to have hidden a vast treasure in the 110m well but
it has not been found. The castle was taken by Simon de Montford in revolt against Henry II,
Henry III and Edward I used it to fight the Welsh and it was taken by the Roundheads, fol-
lowed by the Cavaliers, in the Civil War, including by eight men who appeared to be part of
a large army at night. Royalists held it until six months after the king's defeat in 1645, after
which it was destroyed. Earlier, the site had been used by Neolithic farmers, as a Bronze Age
hill fort and by Iron Age warriors. The castle has a large outer bailey, D-plan towers, an inner
bailey using cliffs on two sides and an early 13th century curtain and gatehouse.
Over the railway, Cheshire Farm makes cheese and one of the widest ranges of dairy ice
cream flavours in the country, over 40, including Temptation Tiger and Monkey Poo for
Chester Zoo.
The canal sidesteps Rowton Moor where, in 1645, the last major battle of the Civil War
was fought. Charles I watched from the city walls at Chester, 4km away, as his soldiers were
beaten. The city withstood a two-year siege.
After the Cheshire Cat, a reach of weeping willows leads into Christleton, probably an
early Christian settlement. The 14th century almshouses are by John Scott and the 19th cen-
tury church has a 15th century tower by Butterfield. There is a village green, a pump house
and a pond that was a fertilizer marl pit. In the Civil War it was an outpost for the Royalists,
who started a serious fire here. Christleton's College of Law is based around an 18th century
hall. Riparian owner David Wain played an important role in our inland waterways and set
up the canal museum in Llangollen. Back in 1935, a local boatyard may have been the first
