Four Counties Ring
A journey of junctions and contours
THE popular Four Counties Ring follows parts of the Trent & Mersey Canal, the Middlewich Branch and Shropshire Union Canal and the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal. This tranquil route explores uplifting landscapes that unravel some of the nation’s grandest stories of pottery, salt and engineering.
Setting off from Great Haywood Junction northwards along the Trent & Mersey Canal, the water is heaving with red brick bridges and fields of cows. At the canal town of Stone, the excitement of a canal born for pottery begins to build. This is the bottle-oven landscape of a region celebrated famously across the globe as The Potteries.
In the 1700s, when Josiah Wedgwood was creating his innovative pottery designs, much of his work was smashed or stolen on its clumsy packhorse route to market. To reach mass markets across the globe he needed canals to be built.
With entrepreneurial vision he employed the great canal engineer James Brindley to build the Trent & Mersey Canal. And by 1777, his delicate pots could set off in a canal boat to safely, and swiftly, reach faraway places across the world. The Potteries exploded into mass production, and its living heritage can be explored in Stoke-onTrent at the World of Wedgwood, Etruria Industrial Museum & Heritage Centre and contemporary potteries such as Emma Bridgewater’s too.
At Etruria Junction, the Caldon Canal slips quietly eastwards while the Ring continues north and, putting thoughts of potter’s clay behind, leads into new territory where there’s an intriguing change in the colour of the canal water. Not unlike tomato soup, the rusty hue of the water is blamed on seepage of iron ore from the first tunnel at Harecastle engineered by Brindley in 1777.
The second tunnel, sitting beside Brindley’s, was built by Telford in 1827 and this is the route boaters use today. Cruising through Harecastle Tunnel (2926yd/2675m long) is a Marmite experience! Love it or hate it, it’s an echoing adventure through almost 8000ft of dripping darkness. And to add to the excitement, or misery, it is said that the ghost of poor old Kit Crewbucket lurks somewhere within the tunnel.
After being murdered, her headless corpse was dumped in the canal and 19th-century boatmen preferred timeconsuming detours rather than face their fears inside this haunted tunnel. Luckily there’s always daylight at the other side.
At Hardings Wood Junction, the Macclesfield Canal swoops northeast, while on the Trent & Mersey, ‘Heartbreak Hill’ awaits (the hill lives up to its name with the workout required to wind through this heavy series of locks lifting the canal northwards). After the Wheelock Flight, the story of salt now wraps the canal. Middlewich has produced salt since Roman times (its Roman name was ‘Salinea’) and a town trail can be followed to discover more about the saltworks settlement that dates back to 150-250AD.
Salt has always been vital for human survival, and even language has evolved from the importance of it – Roman workers’ ‘salary’ was paid in salt, and the term ‘ worth one’s salt’ is still used today. When canals were built, boats carried the salt industry into a new era.
Now heading west under the bridge on to the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union Canal, the first yards used to belong to the Trent & Mersey Canal, and is known as the Wardle Canal, the shortest canal in the country! The water crosses a short aqueduct, flows under bridges, through a couple of locks and along a few country miles before reaching Barbridge Junction. The Ring now heads south along the main line of the Shropshire Union Canal.
The Shropshire Union Canal, known as the ‘Shroppie’, was built by the great engineer Thomas Telford. He aimed to speed up transportation of cargo between the Midlands and the North West, so decided on the shortest possible route – rather than taking a ‘contour’ route like many other canals, he built deep, long cuttings through hills, embankments and flights of locks in short bursts. The embankments caused many problems which delayed the build so much that Telford died before the canal was complete.
At Hurleston Junction, the Llangollen Canal heads off west into the Welsh Hills. The Shroppie soon crosses the stunning Grade II*-listed cast-iron aqueduct, designed by Thomas Telford in 1826, just outside the historic market town of Nantwich. First established in Roman times, the town was mostly rebuilt after a brewer accidentally started the ‘great fire of Nantwich’ in 1583, which destroyed more than 150 buildings.
Such was the uproar that Queen Elizabeth I and her privy council ordered a national fundraising appeal and even donated £1000 herself (about £150,000 today) to help rebuild the town, resulting in the many beautiful black and white beamed Elizabethan buildings throughout the town. The Queen’s generosity is marked by a plaque on a building now called Queen’s Aid House in Nantwich Square.
Sweeping countryside surrounds the canal as it climbs 15 locks through the award-winning village of Audlem, where a canal shop and craft hub are housed in the former canalside mill. Audlem claims to be the ‘first village of the north’ as the village sits in Cheshire, yet the top of the flight is in Shropshire. Above Adderley’s five locks, the town of Market Drayton, with its black and white timber frame architecture, makes a noble claim to be the home of gingerbread.
After the five Tyrley Locks, the Shroppie ambles a 17-mile lock-free stretch to Wheaton Aston. Cuttings, embankments with wide-stretching views and the short Cowley Tunnel (81yd/74m long) splice the route. From water level, many bridges over the canal seem extraordinarily high due to the dramatic canal cuttings. The countryside remains blissfully uninterrupted, with villages scattered here and there. Just north of the ancient village of Brewood, Stretton Aqueduct takes the canal over
the old Roman Road, now the A5. The lock-free eight-mile pound ends with the lock at Autherley Junction which marks the end of the Shropshire Union Canal where it meets the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal.
Turning north-east, the fearlessly straight course of Telford’s canal now gives way to the charismatic winding route of Brindley’s Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal (known as the Staffs & Worcs). Opened in 1772, this was one of the earliest built by the great canal engineer, James Brindley. Its winding course highlights his preferred engineering method of following the land’s contours rather than climbing over and through obstacles. His canals are also distinctive for beautifully crafted brick bridges, many of which are now Grade II-listed. The Staffs & Worcs was built to carry cargoes of coal, steel, carpets and other materials that scarcely fit its green ambience.
The canal squeezes through a narrow cutting called Pendeford Rockin’ before reaching the lock and unusual tollkeeper’s watchtower at Gailey Wharf. Travelling onwards under the former Roman Road Watling Street, now the A5, the canal arrives at the bustling town of Penkridge. Beyond Deptmore Lock, there’s a four-mile stretch without locks, and the nearest point to the county town of Stafford is between bridges 98 and 99.
Just outside Great Haywood, there’s a twist in the tale of this canal. In the 18th century Clifford Thomas occupied Tixall Hall, and when canal builders first arrived to dig an ugly water-motorway of his era, he was ferociously unimpressed. To avoid spoiling his view, he insisted the canal builders widen the water to disguise it as a small lake. Just beyond Tixall Lock the canal bursts open into the full drama of Tixall Wide. The meadow alongside the water is a Site of Special
Scientific Interest and home to a variety of nesting birds.
Peeping over the canal, Shugborough Hall dates back to 1693 and is now a National Trust property. It was once ancestral home of the Earls of Lichfield – the 5th Earl, Patrick Lichfield the photographer, was perhaps the most wellknown. Narrow normality resumes as the canal crosses the River Trent on a small aqueduct and arrives at Great Haywood Junction. Here the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal ends where its water meets the Trent & Mersey Canal, and the Four Counties Ring has gone full circle.
The Four Counties isn’t a big city hopper, yet it passes through sweeping countryside, calling at small towns and villages of no notoriety other than their canalside appeal. The majority is a gentle carefree cruise, with most locks contained in lock flights whose challenge is part of their appeal.