Newsletter Articles

Issues 1 - 3

Boyhood Memories of the Shrewsbury Canal

My name is George Lewis. I am now 82 and live in Wellington, but in my younger days I lived at 14 Lucerne Terrace, Hadley, about ¾ mile from the Shrewsbury Canal

Many a fine day my mother would take my brothers and me a walk down to the canal as a day out with a packet of wine gums, a bean stick, cotton bent pin and a few worms to try our hand at a bit of fishing. I can’t remember catching any but it was great fun.

The part of the canal we went, was from Hadley Park lock to the Wappenshall wide hole. Should it come on to rain we would fish under the arches of the old warehouse which are still there at Wappenshall. One could see plenty of fish there but they would not bite as I think they could see us as much as we could see them.

As I got older some of the lads and myself went to the stretch of the canal that ran at the back of Sankey's works in Hadley.  It was there that I learned to swim as the water was always warm coming from the boilers as at that time the works generated their own electricity. Sometimes after we had a swim we would go for a walk past Trench Lock.  The Trench pool would be on our left and the canal on our right with the incline just in front of us.  They say it closed in 1921 but when I was there around 1932 I have a feeling we saw a barge on the way down, but then again I could be wrong.

I also went swimming at the Hadley Park Lock with the other lads on many occasion as it was only a short walk from Hadley. The lock was always full of water, and one thing we did was try swimming to the bottom of the lock and bring up some mud to prove that you had been to the bottom. I did it once but did not think I was going to see daylight again. It was such a long way back up. 

But the best of all was the aqueduct at Longdon on Tern.  I had a bicycle for my 14^th birthday so I was able to go there often.  It was good there as it was always clean and free of weeds.  We had lots of races to see who could swim the length in the shortest time. I think the last time I was down to the canal was when I was a member of Hadley chapel gymnastic team. It was a nice summer evening and that evening the chapel was locked so the meeting was put off. Someone suggested we should go for a run so about 6 of us set off from Hadley, got on the canal towpath at Hadley Park lock and ran on to Wappenshall and back.  I had a job to walk the next morning

George Lewis

Crossword

In this crossword, all the answers are names of bridges, locks etc. or towns and villages on or close to the line of the canals.  When you have completed it, take the letters in the shaded squares, rearrange them into another place name and a feature of the canal.

The Delaware Canal    

Last Christmas David Adams visited this canal whilst in the USA. As a direct result we have exchanged memberships with the 'Friends of the Delaware Canal'. This is a brief history of their canal (adapted from their website: www.focd.org ).

"The canal is sixty miles long and was built as part of a 1,200 mile network of canals intended to connect Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Lake Erie. Completed in 183, it runs from Bristol to  Easton, where it connects the Lehigh Canal. The primary purpose of these two waterways was to provide a way to transport anthracite coal from the north-eastern Pennsylvania coal regions to the cities on the eastern seaboard. In the most productive years, just prior to the Civil War, over 3,000 mule-drawn boats travelled up and down this route moving over one million tons of coal a year, as well as smaller quantities of other products.

Over its course of 60 miles, the Delaware Canal drops 165 feet through twenty-three locks. Ten aqueducts carry the waterway over small valleys and streams.

As railroads began to seriously compete for freight, canal-generated revenues dropped and in 1858 the decision was made to sell the Delaware Canal to private operators. From 1866 to 1931 the Delaware Canal was run by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, the owners of the Lehigh Canal. Canal traffic and revenue declined until the "iron horse" finally beat the mule when the last paying boat locked through on October 17, 1931.

On the same day 40 miles of the canal was deeded to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and made into the Roosevelt State Park. In 1940 the Commonwealth finally acquired all 60 miles of the canal. In 1978 the canal was designated a National Historic Landmark.  By popular demand the park was renamed the Delaware Canal State Park in 1989. It is preserved today as the most intact and fully-watered of America's towpath canals."

It is interesting to note similarities with the S&N. The Delaware was built at almost precisely the same time as the Newport Branch and, although significantly longer, has exactly the same number of locks. It also has a good number of aqueducts, like the Shrewsbury, and the new replacement Tohickon Aqueduct (pictured below) has a certain similarity to our own Longdon-on-Tern Aqueduct.

The Joys of the Canals?

In the industrial heartland of England lies a green limb, its fingers reaching out – North, South, East and West. On road maps it hardly exists, but for boaters the Inland Waterways hold a historic key to communication. Nowhere in Britain have I found communication more simple and alive than on canals. Gathering for conversation, and waving to one-another in passing, seems to be the central theme of canal life today.

Armed with the idea, sufficient funds to buy a narrow boat and a small black Labrador called  Alice, we set out to look for a boat.

Our search started at Norbury Junction where we looked at ex-hire craft. Somehow I wasn’t quite happy with what we saw, so we took the dog for a walk along the towpath while we discussed the matter.

We were pleased and surprised to see a couple of old friends arriving in their boat which they had purchased a few years earlier.  “What are you doin’?” they asked. “Looking for a boat” we said.  Leaning dangerously overboard Pauline looked into our faces like a soothsayer and said “If you travel down the canal for a few miles to Goldstone wharf you’ll find your boat on the opposite bank.  It’s called “Owly” or something of the like, and it’s for sale”.

We found the boat, but it was all locked up on a locked mooring across the canal. Just as we were turning to leave, an elderly boater called to us and offered to show us around “OWL”.  For me it was love at first sight.

Naomi Stillhere 1997

Artefact or Artefake?

Are these scars genuine?

Users of the canals will probably be familiar with these pieces of foundry-work which we find attached to the masonry at either side of canal bridges.  We are told that they were installed to protect the masonry from abrasion from the towropes used for pulling boats along the canal, and that the grooves in the cast iron are the result of the wear-and-tear of thousands of ropes passing over them.

Are these scars real?? Or are we victims of an elaborate hoax?

Let us consider the evidence against their authenticity.

These pieces of cast iron are all in remarkably good order considering their alleged antiquity – hardly rusty at all.

Why antiquity? Well, the use of horse-drawn boats (and hence towropes) decreased markedly with the advent of the use of steam and internal combustion engines almost a century ago.

The scars themselves are of a remarkably uniform size - some are much deeper than others it is true, but are almost universally the same width- about 1/2 inch - and what is more - parallel in the groove and with each other - not a curve in sight.

All the samples of towropes I have ever seen have been have been 1 inch in diameter or thicker. Are we to believe that boat-masters would use such slender ropes which surely would need constant replacement?

Next let us consider the ropes themselves - the ropes were not made of steel, but of hemp or sisal or other natural material and yet appear to have worn very deep scars in a much more durable material - they would have to be very abrasive indeed to have caused such wear.

It would also seem that any knots or joins in the towrope would tend to jamb in any grooves which were formed, or otherwise wear the grooves wider. No record has been found to indicate this.

Consider also, if you will, the mechanism of towing a boat. The towrope would be of the order of 50 yards long in order to avoid too steep an angle between the boat and the bank which otherwise would cause steering difficulties. The rope would hang in a catenary ranging in height of about 4 feet from the ground at the horse end to about 7 feet at the attachment to the mast and be close to the ground somewhere about halfway between the boat and the horse.

When passing over the rubbing strake, then, the rope would start almost four feet up it, slide downward until the catenary reached lowest point and sweep upwards again as it was lifted to mast height. The resultant wear should therefore appear as a barrel-shaped indentation heaviest in the middle. Where then do the grooves arise?

© Charlie Stroud 2001

More Memories of the Shrewsbury Canal

In the 1950's I lived at Pimley Lodge with my parents and 2 sisters.

There was little water in the Canal then until you got to Uffington, but it had not been filled in as it has now.  The towpath was used regularly for walks, especially to Uffington and Haughmond Hill.  The narrow path leading down from Pimley Bridge to the towpath was very steep and slippery.  The Canal itself was overgrown with vegetation and I remember picking pussy willow there every year.

Every Sunday morning my sister, Penny, and I would walk along the towpath with our friend from Pimley Cottages to the Sunday School at Uffington Church Hall.  Our friend's sister would take us as she was our Sunday School teacher and much admired by me and Penny.  Dad, who was the gardener for the owner of Pimley Manor, took us on lots of walks along the old Canal.  Chickens used to nest in the Canal hedges at Uffington and so we used to take some of the eggs home.  Mum had to be careful though as sometimes the eggs had gone off.  What a smell! One year we children found a Pheasant’s nest with 2 eggs in it in the bramble undergrowth on the Canal bank.  This caused great excitement and Dad had to be fetched to see our amazing find.

The Seven Pitches football fields were farmed then and the farmer lived in one of Pimley Cottages.  All the Pimley families used to have a 5th November bonfire on the nearest field and overlooking the Canal.  Mum used to bake potatoes in the fire, they were delicious.  We only had a few fireworks and Dad used to pretend the jumping jacks were after him.  Simple pleasures which gave us much happiness.

The farmer kept pigs the other side of our garden wall and there were lots of bales of scratchy straw in the granary.  Great fun was had jumping from the top of the high granary steps.  There was an old dusty cart at the front of the cottages under the old barn roof and this was good for playing in.  The cart is still at Pimley and all spruced up now. 

Pimley Bridge c 1961

Then there was fishing in Pimley Brook with a cane and string and one of Dad's fishing hooks.  I think we used to catch Chub and Dad always put them back in the water.  The Brook was a lot deeper then than it is now and our friend fell in one day.  A neighbour saved him using her dog’s lead.  We had gone with the neighbour who was walking Toby, her dog.  Thank goodness for Toby and the quick thinking of his owner as none of us could swim!

The brook ran through Pimley Woods with Marsh Marigolds growing in profusion on  its banks and there were  marvellously shaped  trees for  climbing and using as ‘dens’.  The scouts had several 'huts' at Pimley and they used to cook flour and water on sticks over open fires at the brook side.  Once cooked the 'pastry' was smeared with jam and eaten.  They used to let me and Penny join them sometimes.  The scouts also had a skiffle group complete with washboard and tea chest and we used to sit outside the hut listening to this strange sound which we rather liked.  In winter there was tobogganing down the steep slope by the stream at the side of the Canal.  At the bottom it was very marshy and there were lots of frogs here in spring and summer among the Ragged Robin.  Snowdrops grew in profusion in Pimley Woods, like a white carpet.

The owner of the Manor had a gentle black and white curly haired dog called James and he and his mistress took many walks on Pimley Lane which was much potholed then.  There was also a donkey named Beauty who lived in one of the outbuildings opposite the Lodge.  Mum used to brush her coat as it got easily matted.

I came back to Shrewsbury in 1980.  The 2 wooden scout huts have gone and the brick one is now someone's home, as is the store where Dad kept the carrots and beetroots under piles of sand (I can smell that glorious room now). No farmer lives at the Cottages and the pigs have gone. I expect the granary is empty of its prickly straw bales.  The biggest change is that the Canal has been filled in right to the top of the Bridge.  Where I walked with my sons and where my eldest son now walks with his children is actually where the Canal itself was.  Still, it is good to see history repeating itself.  I like to think that we are all going in the same direction.  Having recently lost my parents, it is good to remember the old Canal and to continue to visit and walk there.

Diana Harmer