Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
31
Caldon Canal
Distance
41 km from Etruria to Combridge
Highlights
Etruria Industrial Museum
Cheddleton flint mills
Navigation Authority
Canal & River Trust
Canal Society
Caldon & Uttoxeter Canals Trust
OS 1:50,000 Sheets
118 Stoke-on-Trent & Macclesfield
119 Buxton & Matlock
128 Derby & Burton upon Trent
Although a branch of the Trent & Mersey Canal, the main business of the Caldon Canal
was self-contained when it was constructed in 1778. Its purpose was to bring limestone from
the quarries at Caldon Low to the industrial area at Etruria, site of Josiah Wedgwood and
Thomas Bentley's factory producing Jasper Ware, red-and-black figure porcelain vases and
cameos. The siting is where the Etruria marl meets the coal measures of the North Stafford-
shire coalfield, the marl and coal being used 1:6 in the production of the porcelain. It was the
canal that established the commercial importance of Stoke-on-Trent. It carried pottery traffic
until 1995, the last regular commercial traffic on any narrow canal.
The area has since been turned into the 3ha Etruria Industrial Museum with a waterside pub-
lic house, museum, steam beam engine from about 1850 and the Etruscan Bone & Flint Mill
with its iron-banded brick chimney, erected in 1857. Also included are the canal maintenance
buildings and dry dock at the junction with the Trent & Mersey, just above Etruria Top Lock.
