What a wet and windy day
Tuesday was! Our walk in the morning
took us up the Stoke and Tardebigge lock flights and back again - 35 locks in the two flights. There were a couple of boats on the move,
braving the wind, but they were both hire boats going back to their base at
Stoke Prior so they had no choice really.
The rain held off during
the middle of the day and, as I had lunch, I realised the boat was grinding
against the side. I’d not heard it since
we have been moored here so assumed either the water level had changed in
the pound or the wind was causing it. Anyway, I took
the opportunity to put our new go kart tyre fenders down. Karen had been given four by a guy in her
office and I had temporarily rigged them up for use on the River Avon. Before putting them down I decided to fix the
lines permanently and set about drilling holes in the tyres and making the
lines look pretty.
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Our go kart tyre fenders
and my fancy ropework 😉
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I mentioned on Monday that
this area is called Stoke Works and used to be a major salt producing
town. It came late to the salt
production scene and was mainly led by a guy called John Corbett. Salt springs were discovered during the
building of the canal (the Worcester & Birmingham canal) which happened
between 1791 and 1815.
John Corbett was one of
the model employers from the industrial age and provided housing for his employees
as well as a school, church, stores and even retirement homes for them. The retirement homes were
built in the style of alms houses and have a commemorative inscription built into their walls saying
they were provided for decayed salt workers and their widows – I never realised
I was decayed rather than retired!
Other model employers who
built villages for their employees include Titus Salt, the Victorian textile magnate, who founded
Saltaire near Bradford – well worth a visit. Another one that always comes to mind is Port
Sunlight on the Wirral, founded by one of the Lever brothers, also well worth a
visit.
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The school built by John
Corbett in 1872 – now converted to flats
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The house looking bit on
the left was where the teachers lived and there was also a doctor’s surgery and
dispensary.
The shot above is the view
from our boat so the following is the view the flat owners must have!
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Our boat from the old
school
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I may have mentioned
before that donkeys were used to tow barges on this canal rather than
horses. This was because once they
reached the River Severn at Worcester, donkeys were easier to transport on the
barges for the river trip. In his heyday
John Corbett owned over 50 barges for transporting coal to, and salt from, his
works so owned several large fields for resting the donkeys.
Very little remains of the
old salt works now. The pump house
appears to be the only building and that is in a sorry state of repair.
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Old pump house where brine
used to be pumped up from underground
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Plaque confirming there is
little left
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If you cruise along the
canal you will see where the entrance to the old salt works wharf was. If you walk along the towpath you will walk
over the entrance.
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Entrance to John Corbett’s
salt works from the canal
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Other than the entrance
bridge and the pump house, the works is now derelict land
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Later on Wednesday, Buddy
and I walked across the fields to see the church that Corbett had built in the 1880s
but in the medieval style. It suffered
almost immediately from subsidence from the salt extraction in the area. Inside the floor is very uneven and has a pronounced
slope but I couldn’t get a photo to do it justice.
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Sloping floor in the church - not obvious here but quite disconcerting walking around
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Walking back to the boat
the sun came out and quite a few butterflies started flying around. It felt like days since I’d seen any
butterflies and I was fortunate to see four new ones for this year: Small
Heath, Large Skipper, Common Blue and Meadow Brown. This means I have seen 13 different species
so far this year so maybe summer is around the corner.
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Walking home across the
butterfly meadow
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