Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
At Cheddleton comes the first of several unusual side weirs with the towpath taken across
the face of the weir while a narrow footbridge adjacent enables the man leading the tow horse
to keep his own feet dry.
Cheddleton is renowned for its mill complex with buildings dating back as far as the 13th
century. Its pride is a magnificent pair of undershot mill wheels. One of these flint mills was
probably designed by James Brindley. Restored in 1967, the mills were used to grind flint
from the English Channel before sending it up the canal to the Potteries. Other exhibits in-
clude a Robens steam engine, a haystack boiler, a model Newcomen engine, a section of
plateway and lime and ochre kilns. Overlooking the complex is a church with pre-Raphaelite
art and stained glass.
Beyond a wooden building across the canal, two locks drop past Castros restaurant and a
farm-gate factory before the canal reaches the station for the restored Churnet Valley Rail-
way, which follows the canal, and the Staffordshire Way footpath comes alongside.
Normally dark and slow, the river winds down to Consallforge, once an extensive water-
powered ironworks with restored limekilns, where the canal breaks away from the river past
the Black Lion and into woodland. There is barely room for the railway to squeeze in between
the canal and river here and a wooden footway takes the towpath under the railway bridge.
Cherry Eye Bridge, with its pointed, stone arch, marks the start of Rueglow Wood, with its
picnic area and mooring and a horse escape ramp. This reach, with idyllic scenery, has been
relined in concrete. Thomas Bolton's copperworks have been demolished.
At Froghall, the canal turns sharply into the low and irregular 69m tunnel with its roof sag-
ging in the centre. Froghall Wharf, the terminal basin, has a canal craft centre, horse-drawn
narrowboat trips and a picnic area. It has ruined limekilns and, when constructed, was con-
nected by horse-drawn tramway to the quarries at Caldon Low.
In 1811, the canal was extended southwards to Uttoxeter. The Uttoxeter Canal, as the new
part of the Caldon Canal was sometimes called, was built as a blocking move to prevent a
broad-beam canal being built to rival the Trent & Mersey. It ran for a further 21km with 17
locks. In 1846 the North Staffordshire Railway bought the Trent & Mersey Canal, of which
this was a branch, and converted most of the canal extension to a railway. This has, in turn,
been closed although Staffordshire's only Italianate station has been restored at Alton and
there are restoration plans for the Churnet Valley Railway. The first lock on the Uttoxeter
Canal at Froghall has been restored, giving access to a lower basin.
