We left Congleton quite late the following evening and continued southwards down the Macclesfield canal passing through pleasant rural scenery and occasional glimpses of Mow Cop and it’s crowning castle on the left. One difference between the canal now and when I came up alone some months back was that since then lots of reed had grown and was floating disembodiedly in the water which can easily get tangled in the boat’s propeller causing it to jam up and making it necessary, at least on our boat, to crawl on your belly under the stern of it and get your head down the weedhatch in order to disentangle it again. All this made parts of the canal a bit like a vegetable based mine field and one we didn’t negotiate succesfully despite keeping a wary eye out, in that, after passing under a bridge, the prop suddenly jammed and the engine cut out, and we realised we’d hit one these submerged mass of evil weeds so had to pull in and spend half an hour cutting it free.
We were aware that south of Congleton at bridge 85 there is a path over farmer’s fields you can take which leads you to Little Moreton Hall about 1km away, which is a 14th Cent. house run by the National Trust that’s well worth seeing. We’d seen it several times before so gave it a miss this time, being in a sort of hurry and all, but here’s some pictures of it anyhow.
Little Moreton Hall
Courtyard, Little Moreton hall
In keeping with the rest of the summer, it started raining very heavily and so after a while we moored up in some remote spot next to farm buildings from which we could hear the sound of livestock, resolving to make an early start the following morning.
In Search of Dan Taylor on a Narrowboat 