Lock Free Shroppie Day

We love the Shroppie it has a charm of its own. OK it might have many long straights and banks that slope so that you cannot moor easily without using a plank to get ashore but you can admire the rolling countryside with a fine view of the Wrekin for miles around. It has many cuttings as the Lords of the land at the time did not allow an easier route across their land. There are many high bridges in order to span the cuttings.

The most famous is the High Bridge at High Offley through Grub Street cutting. It still retains the original telegraph pole high up into its arch.

There have been problems with this cutting having suffered landslips from its steep banks. Have to say that a lot of the offside vegetation has been cut back to enable easier boat passing. There is evidence of this with numerous piles of wood chippings from the offending trees. One pile was even growing masses of fungi from it.

We passed a large ex-chocolate factory (now producing only dried milk) whose goods used to be carried to and from Bournville by canal boat.

The highlight for Keith on a trip up the Shroppie is a visit to the fine old boaties pub called The Anchor. This is a genuinely untouched historic heritage pub. When you step into The Anchor, you step back in time. There are just two small rooms. The one to the left as you go in I suppose you might call the lounge. The one to the right is usually where travelling musicians gather, usually instigated by a local narrowboater called Mal (MBE) who is a wonderful fellow with a large repertoire of songs, many of them self-penned and which are known and sang along to by the locals It is owned my a delightful lady named Olive who has been there for years and we can remember her descending down into the cellar, if you wanted a pint of beer, in order to fill a jug before decanting it into your glass. She is getting a little older now and has a pump fitted in order to dispense the one and only beer on the handle, Wadworth's 6X. Her daughter keeps the garden immaculately adorned with flowers. At one time she had a display in the form of a narrowboat, now sadly gone.

 

 

 

Our stern fenders are looking a bit tired after 4 years of use and so Mal was commissioned to make a new set so this will give Keith a chance to revisit the delights of The Anchor in a couple of weeks time when he drives up to collect them.

Tomorrow we head on down to Wheaton Aston in order to replenish the diesel tank with an estimated 150 litres of red diesel. This is reputed to be the cheapest source on the canal system for red diesel.