Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Jack Mytton Inn is a prominent canalside building at Hindford. Just after the Oswestry
to Whitchurch railway crosses, a neat brick roving bridge takes the towpath across before the
Narrow Boat Inn.
There are extensive views southwards over the Perry valley, for the next 3km approaching
Tetchill, to hills south of the River Severn. The Montgomery Canal line of the Shropshire
Union Canal joins at Lower Frankton. Following the contours, the canal makes a near 180˚
bend before Tetchill.
Ellesmere, a town with Saxon origins, begins with Ellesmere Depot and Yard, joinery
shops and forge, now including interesting private dwellings. The boat repair shop is still
in use and the Canal & River Trust provide services for powered craft. On one occasion a
floor collapsed under British Waterways senior management ironically having a health and
safety meeting. There is a picnic area as the Ellesmere Branch goes off to the town centre, the
canal's eastern terminus initially. The motte and bailey castle site is now a bowling green in
this 18th century market town with its Georgian houses. St Mary's church has medieval ori-
gins, a medieval chest made from a solid oak block, a 15th century octagonal font and many
fine effigies.
The meres are kettle holes surrounded by kame moraines. Blocks of ice buried in the
ground at the end of the Ice Age 15,000 years ago gradually melted without any drainage
paths leading away. Local legend says that there was just one well in a field. A new tenant re-
fused to let the villagers use it or they were charged by the bucket. They prayed for assistance
and the well overflowed so that there was free water for all but the tenant still had to pay the
rent for his now flooded land. Another legend has 16th century highwayman Sir Humphrey
Kynaston landing on his horse after a 14km jump from Nesscliffe, perhaps assisted by the
belief that the horse may have been the Devil. He did make prodigious but more plausible
jumps on horseback, including down a cliff from his Nescliffe cave to escape. These days
the meres are dark pools surrounded by trees. The Mere, at 45ha, is the largest. The canal
skirts Blake Mere and Cole Mere. The latter has the 28ha Colemere Country Park, wildfowl
and information on the geology, flora and fauna of the meres and mosses and the remains of
limekilns in this Site of Special Scientic Interest.
For 1.6km the canal runs straight and wide, crossing back into England to a canal junction
dominated by a red-brick house with circular insets. The Prees Branch never reached Prees
but it did get to Edstaston, hence its alternative name of Edstaston Branch. These days, it
only reaches Waterloo. Whixall Moss roving bridge is a wooden structure with lattice sides,
adding to the character of the area.
Platt Lane has a typical slated, red-brick wharf and warehouse. There are lime kilns in a
garden at Lower Tilstock Park and the site of a brickworks on the right before the former
Cambrian Railway line from Oswestry to Whitchurch crossed over. These local industries
