Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Railway Lock where the line crosses over, Road Lock by The Sportsman pub and Hollybush
Lock, which has its large side weir discharging beneath a set of old canal buildings. The canal
is now 148m above sea level and takes off with a broad straight pound instead of the narrow
twisting route taken so far.
This is interrupted at Endon by a circular island in the canal, the base of a swing bridge
for a former light railway. The main line used to continue through what is now Endon Basin
but was diverted to the south in 1841 to accommodate the railway and feeder from Rudyard
Reservoir.
Endon, which is dominated by a creeper-covered house on a hilltop, obtains minor fame
for two days in late May each year as being the only village outside Derbyshire where well
dressing is practised.
The occasional rock outcrops, brick bridges being progressively replaced by stone and
cows feeding in woods at the base of a steep bank, lead up to Hazlehurst Junction where the
4km Leek branch leaves on the right. This route to the Capital of the Moors was built in 1801,
partly to bring water from Rudyard Reservoir.
The Bedford Street staircase at Etruria
.
Although it was never officially abandoned and remained passable to Hazlehurst, the canal
was restored from near dereliction by the Caldon Canal Society with the assistance of Stoke
City Council, Staffordshire County Council and British Waterways and reopened in 1974.
Beyond the Hollybush at Denford, the canal swings southwards into the valley of the River
Churnet and some of the finest scenery in the Midlands, deep wooded valleys with over-
hanging crags.
