Day 5 - Trent and Mersey Canal

As its name implies, the Trent and Mersey Canal was built to link the River Trent at Derwent Mouth (in Derbyshire) to the River Mersey. The plan of a canal connection from the Mersey to the Trent ("The Grand Trunk") came from James Brindley.

Trent and Mersey Canal

James Brindley, did his first canal work on the Trent and Mersey (T&M). In 1761, Josiah Wedgwood (English potter who founded the Wedgwood company and is credited with the industrialisation of the manufacture of pottery) showed an interest in the construction of a canal through Stoke on Trent, the location of his factory, as his business depended on the safe and smooth transport of his pots. By road, pots were liable to be damaged and broken. A canal near to his factory would provide fast and safe transport for his wares.

Our time on the T&M is quite short relative to the overall length of this canal.

Trent and Mersey Canal - Fradley Junction to Great Haywood Junction

We spent the previous evening at the canal-side Staffordshire village of Handsacre and dined at the village pub called the Olde Peculiar.

Olde Peculiar - Village Pub

The highlight on this section of canal was a detour into the cathedral city of Lichfield with two objectives in mind - a discovery of Lichfield Cathedral and a visit to the Vodafone shop to get my Broadband SIM working.

Lichfield Cathedral is considered a treasured landmark in the heart of the West Midlands with 1300 years of history in the only medieval three-spired Cathedral in the UK.

Lichfield Cathedral looking towards Chapter House and Lady Chapel

Lichfield is among the earliest centres of Christian worship in the UK.  After the invasion of 1066, the Normans built a new cathedral (of which only few traces remain) then rebuilt in the Gothic style by c. 1340.  Besieged three times in the English Civil War, it suffered drastic damage, more than any other English Cathedrals.   It was rapidly repaired in a mere nine years and then ‘restored’ in the 19th century.

Lichfield Cathedral

A great wall around the Close proved to be the Cathedral’s undoing during the 17th century English Civil War since it turned the Cathedral and Close into an ideal garrison, for both the Royalists, and the Roundheads. During these sieges cannonballs destroyed both the roof and the central spire.

Nave looking towards the pulpit and choir

The building is constructed of sandstone from a quarry on the south side of Lichfield. The walls of the nave lean outwards slightly, due to the weight of stone used in the ceiling vaulting; some 200 – 300 tons of which was removed during renovation work to prevent the walls leaning further.

Aerial view of Lichfield Cathedral

The stained glass windows contain some of the finest medieval Flemish painted glass in existence. Dating from the 1530s it came from the Abbey of Herkenrode in Belgium and was transported to Lichfield in part by narrowboat along the recently constructed canals.

Flemish painted glass

Being a historic Mercian* site, a small display of items recovered from the recently discovered Staffordshire Hoard are displayed in the Chapter House. The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork yet found consisting of over 3,500 items, amounting to a total of 5.1 kg of gold, 1.4 kg of silver and over 3,500 pieces of garnet cloisonné jewelry.

(* Mercia - one of seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms)

The collection - worth £3.2m - contains more than 4,000 pieces.

Although the hoard was discovered in farmland near Hammerwich (4 miles from the cathedral) the majority of the find on display is exhibited in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent. More about the hoard in the Birmingham post.

Individual item of Anglo-Saxon treasure from the Staffordshire Hoard

Our meanderings up the T&M Canal took us to the turn at the start of the Staffordshire and Worstershire Canal at Great Haywood. During this canal's heyday cargo carried on working boats would have continued on up the T&M Canal to Manchester and Liverpool.

Only two locks today. Locks are really cool it's like going up or down in a huge lift. So powerful, so calm, so reliable - and that's just me the skipper. ;-)

That's all for this post.

The Skipper.