Four Counties Ring
aboard Stolen Time

Page Published: 4 March 2026

Introduction

The page records the second week Liz and I spent aboard Stolen Time back in August 2002. If you have not read it yet, I'd recommend starting with Part One of this report.

Saturday 10 August 2002

At some point on the Saturday morning we broke down. I can't remember whether it was the engine itself or some part in the drive train. Whatever it was, we couldn't go any further under our own power. For a long time, but before I started work on this page, I had a memory that suggested it was on the Tyrley Flight that we broke down. I think that was mainly because I recalled the conversations that we had on the flight with crews on other boats. Now, looking at the photos and taking account of the order in which they were taken, and the various land marks, when we must have been under power, I conclude it must have been at Wheaton Aston Lock that we could go no further under our own steam.

Part of the reason for this conclusion is that I cannot recall having to hail a passing boat. Engaging a crew of a boat, which was following us, helping them through the lock and explaining our plight seems a much more likely sequence of events and would tie in with my memory of it being at a lock when we managed to cadge the tow at the only remaining lock before Autherley Junction. It being the last remaining lock is a factor too. I don't remember being involved in negotiating a lock while under tow. What I do remember clearly was that the boat that towed us was a private tug style narrowboat in a grey livery and I got the feeling that they were almost pleased to feel their choice of design made them destined to help some broken down boat.

I can't recall making a call to OwnerShips and telling them we were under tow, or hoped to get one, but I do remember being concerned that we wouldn't reach the boatyard at Autherley Junction, which we were told would be able to fix our problem, till after lunch and that would mean they'd be busy with holiday handovers or the mechanics may have packed up for the day by then. However, my memory says the problem was fixed reasonably promptly and without any drama.

What happened next is a mystery too! Certainly, we were on our way in reasonably short order but our location, when it came to moor for the night, is another of those things lost from my memory. My best guess is that we moored on the Saturday night somewhere between the unusual buildings beside the lock at Gailey and the small town of Penkridge.

Sunday 11 August 2002

Besides having no evidence of where we moored on Saturday night, I also have no theory on why there is a break of almost a full day in the photographic record from around midday on the Saturday, when the repair at Autherley Junction took place, and the evening of Sunday, when we moored for the night. However, I do know, with certainty, why I took the photo of the boat we moored just beyond in Stafford.

I do have a very distinct memory of photographing the boat moored aft of us, as we walked past to the gardens of the Radford Bank Inn. That's because I could barely believe even the most naive holiday boater could think that leaving the bows with a line floating in the water, while another ran backwards and at knee height across the towpath, was a good idea. The line securing the boat at the stern is no better, with masses of slack, allowing the boat to drift outwards to block the channel.

I'm sure it wasn't choice that led us to sit in the pub garden to have our meal as clearly it was a lot colder and no one else had opted to eat outside. I know we spent the night on the mooring just ahead of the strangely moored boat.

Monday 12 August 2002

I have the vaguest of feelings that Liz may have gone on another trip for provisions in the centre of Stafford before we set off on the Monday morning. If you'd asked me before I started working on this page, I'd have said I thought we didn't reach Tixall Wide until the mid-afternoon, but this part of our cruise is hazy in my memory.

It shouldn't have done, but it took me a while to realise that, but as the tiller was in place and the throttle well advanced, the picture of the dogs was taken while we were under way, somewhere between Stafford and Tixall Wide.

It's only a little over four miles with just one lock between Radford Bridge and Tixall Wide. I'm sure that I had hoped we would be able to stop as we passed through it and thinking, "If only we had a mud weight..." while Liz said:

I remember not liking Tixall Wide, too much water and I could no longer touch the sides!"

Having a mud weight would have been the norm on a Broads based boat and Tixall Wide is the closest you come on the canal network to being on a Norfolk Broad. Without a mud weight we would be obliged to moor and I suspect that all the moorings on the tow path were taken as it seems likely that it would have been there around lunch time.

I really wish I knew where we moored for the night. I suspect it was somewhere between Great Hayward and Weston Upon Trent, simply on the basis that we seemed to have begun to recognise that we had been covering more ground than necessary each day to enable us to return, on time, to Heritage Marina.

Tuesday 13 August 2002

If I worried about a break in the photographic record between Saturday and Sunday, then I should also be worrying about the lack of photos for the next couple of days as well. If pressed I would say that I believe the picture of Liz belongs in the section covering Monday, but I've added it here as I didn't like to leave a day with no picture at all. I could also mention that there are no pictures of rain in the entire fortnight of our cruise. Could it be rain that put me off getting out my camera on the Tuesday?

However, I can be sure that on our journey up the Trent and Mersey towards Stone was the only time Liz was prepared to take the helm. She remembers something I had forgotten. I'm told that on the one occasion she took the helm she managed to get onions rolling around the cabin due to her erratic use of the tiller. I can understand Liz's reluctance to take the helm. It's a mighty chunk of metal to be responsible for and it doesn't have brakes! And don't forget, Liz doesn't like water in quantities bigger than a bath full.

Those not used to boats, or who have never thought about the way you make a boat turn can take some time to catch on to how to steer one. They steer a bit like one of those trolleys you find at garden centres, the ones with fixed wheels at the front and castors at the back. To turn to the left you swing the back to the right. But, with a boat, there's slightly more to it than that. Unlike a garden centre trolley a boat has no fixed wheels at the front on which to pivot. Instead the point at which it pivots depends on how the boat sits in the water and that can vary.

On a narrowboat the water tank is usually right at the front. If full, the heavy weight of water will cause the bows to sit relatively low in the water and keep the boat level, as the still heavier engine is always at the back. In that case the boat pivots roughly around the point half way along its length. But if the water tank is near empty then there's more of the hull deeper in the water at the back and the pivot point moves further aft. There's still more to it than that! Canals are shallow and the main channel is not always central between the banks. How close any part of the hull is to the bottom, will also affect how easy it is for the hull to move sideways.

With few photos of this part of the trip and none showing us on an overnight mooring I have no definitive indication of where we spent the Monday night. My first thought was that it was between Weston Upon Trent and Stone, but I now think that we may have moored close to Star Lock in the centre of Stone as, although there is no evidence for it, I do have a memory wanting to explore the area around Star Lock as the Nicholson's Guide of the time references a "superb traditional lock-side pub" the Star Inn. Maybe we ate there, or somewhere close by, that evening.

Wednesday 14 August 2002

I remember both of us undertaking an exploration of Stone's town centre with the dogs. It's possible that exploration happened on the Tuesday afternoon rather than the Wednesday morning. We found a pedestrianised High Street that gave the impression of having had a lot of money spent on improving the area but finding ourselves frustrated and not staying long as there were none of the kind of shops we wanted there.

However, in spite of my memory saying we didn't find what we wanted something did change! Following several days with few or no photographs we get lots that cover our last two full days and the final morning. Perhaps, rather than a lack of storage capacity it was a lack of batteries that was the problem and we did manage to find them in Stone.

The photographic evidence suggests we must have made it up the Meaford Flight relatively early. I recall there was some debate about whether we should moor near Bridge #104 to visit the Wedgewood factory, eventually deciding not to, but I believe we did stop for a coffee. I think it was still quite dull when we passed the factory but the weather was improving and the brilliant sun, coming from the East, seen in the next picture, confirms it was taken in the morning. It took a long time to locate the bridge seen in the distance, but I am now certain it is Hemheath Bridge (#106).

It was a surprise to find a heron stay on the bank. On the Broads, herons are not normally intimidated by boats at all, but on the canals I have found that, as you approach, they take off and go a hundred yards further on. When you reach them they do the same again and repeat that perhaps half a dozen times, before flying over your head to return to their original position 500 yards behind you.

I was also surprised to find that I could locate these pictures so accurately. It's that paving slab set at 45° in the hedge that does it. You'll find it by a gate to a back garden some 150 yards north of Bridge #106

I'm sure it was the boats that first caught my eye as we approached the Dolphin boat yard. I've only seen one other yard on the canals, that was on the Lancaster Canal, that hosts so many plastic boats. But I'm also sure it was the last item of the list of facilities at the yard that I hoped to catch in my photograph as we passed, rather than the first mis-spelled "Tacle & Bait". Does anyone else know of a boat yard that promotes "Country & Western Line Dancing"? What's more, some twenty years later the list was still there although the roof-top "Dolphin" sign is gone.

We continued on our way, soon to reach the Stoke Flight.

I'm not sure whether we considered exploring part of the Caldon Canal again. We had visited it two years earlier when we had hired a boat from "Stone Boatbuilding" a company that is no longer operating. I fancy that we got as far as entering the lower lock of the staircase and had been unable to proceed, so the moorings at Eturia just happened to be a convenient place to drag the boat and report another breakdown. I wish I could remember the symptoms. I only know that we had to wait a number of hours for someone to come and fix the boat. By then, if there had been any idea of proceeding up the Caldon, it was abandoned.

I'm not sure how far ahead we booked, but it could have been during the wait for the repair that we had booked our passage through the Harecastle Tunnel. It was to take place on Thursday afternoon. With no locks between Eturia and the tunnel when we did get going it wouldn't have taken more than an hour to reach our destination for the night, Westport Lake. I think we made it by late afternoon, as I recall bright sun as we moored by the lake.

Thursday 15 August 2002

Westport Lake is less than a mile from the southern portal of the Harecastle Tunnel. I don't remember anything about the morning or how long we were waiting at the tunnel. The shadows in the photo I took from Bridge #130 suggest that we had booked an early afternoon transit and that we were fifth in the queue.

Once in the tunnel and the air tight doors are shut behind you and you become aware of the noise of the large extractor fans. These suck air from the northern end of the 1.6 mile tunnel, along with any diesel and other toxic fumes from the boats on their way through the tunnel. I read that these days navigation lights are required. Certainly Stolen Time had only a "tunnel light", a headlamp. These are always set to point slightly upwards, towards the tunnel roof, rather than being "dipped" as the danger point is normally clipping the cabin roof, rather than the hull or gunwales.

Getting through the tunnel takes about 30 minutes and was quite an experience, although it only ranks around ninth longest of those on the system. I remember emerging from the tunnel and being immediately aware of the rust coloured water. I don't recall being aware of that as we entered the tunnel but my photograph of us at the southern portal does suggest the cut was not the more normal dirty black that you see on most of the network.

When asked about the holiday, Liz says:

I recall singing "I'm coming home I've done my time" as we approached the end of the holiday, but at which point I started it I’m not quite sure, maybe when we got to the tunnel.

I did find the locks a challenge but I remember getting better at it, and after my initial meltdown, I believe I did enjoy it.

Once out of the tunnel the plan was to repeat the trip we had made on the Friday at the start of our fortnight. We turned left onto the Macclesfield Canal and towards Heritage Marina. Once beyond that just about the first land mark you notice is Ramsdell Hall. These days they don't mow the grass right down to the canal. Perhaps the vegetation is intended to stop people mooring there.

You don't see that viaduct these days as much of the top of the embankment is thick with trees that totally obscure the view. Just beyond the end of the embankment the canal passes over the old railway line, now a footpath named "The Biddulph Valley Way". I think I had hoped to get beyond Congleton but the winding holes further up the canal did not seem likely to provide as pleasant a mooring as one on the embankment we had just crossed.

Nicholson's Guide is silent on the name of the short arm just before Bridge #72, but the copy of the Macclesfield Canal Society's guide that I had picked up on the first day of our cruise, would have reminded me it originally served a local cotton mill and was known as as Vaudrey's Wharf. We turned there and returned to the embankment and moored there for our last night.

The trip report that I wrote to the uk.rec.waterways newsgroup mentions that the MCS guide was the latest edition. The "Third Edition" was published in May 2002, three months before our cruise. I also have a copy of the second edition, "The 2000/1 Guide", which replaced the first 1998 edition. Back in those days I ran a site at waterwaysguides.co.uk and I bought and was sent, by hobbyist publishers, various canal guides. That's how I ended up with two editions of the Macclesfield Canal Society's guide to the canal. I think it was one of the MCS guides that persuaded us to take a walk with the dogs along the old railway line which allowed me to take a better picture of Vaudrey's Wharf.

I can't remember the reason but I don't think we went very far along the old railway line. I'd say we didn't do more than walk down to the level of the line. Perhaps it was because we hoped to get good views across the valley, but what I recall we found was the same heavily tree-lined footpath that you see today and was likely to leave the dogs muddy after the recent rain.

After abandoning the idea of the walk we returned to the boat, cooked ourselves a meal and settled down for our last night aboard. For a last photo of the day I took a picture of the side hatch doors. On my lone trip in February 2002 I had taken a photo of one of the side hatch doors which only showed part of the collection of brass plaques other shareholders had mounted on the hatch.

Friday 16 August 2002

From our overnight mooring we would have made an early start, even though it would have taken us less than an hour to reach Heritage Marina. That's because it wouldn't be a simple matter of loading the car and starting the journey home. First we'd need to reload the boat with all the stuff we'd removed on arrival. Only then could we pack the car with what was left of what we'd brought with us.

Considering how often Liz would have taken the dogs ashore to walk the towpath it's surprising that this is the only photo I took of the dogs being exercised. One of the great advantages of holidaying on the canals is that your boat doesn't travel faster than a walking pace. You can easily drop off your dog walker and animal at one bridge and pick them up again a few bridges further down the cut. It avoids the boredom of having to retrace steps or the stress of judging whether the planned circular walk is longer than necessary.

The first thing done after clearing the boot of the car was to erect the specially made wooden panel I constructed that filled the space where the back rests of the rear seats would go. After that the dog beds went in, followed by the dogs. One of the advantages of the original Renault Scenic was that the seats didn't just roll forward but were completely removable. It left a huge depth of space to fill with a fortnight's gear and provisions for the four of us.

It seems it had clouded over again by the time we had finished clearing and cleaning the boat and packing our stuff in the car. I don't remember anything about the return journey but Liz was true to the words she wrote in the boat's log book. She never again went near Stolen Time. I did attend the next owners' AGM. You can learn something about that on the page with my Thoughts on Shared Ownership of a Narrowboat. Suffice it to say that after that our share in Stolen Time was sold - for the same price we had paid fifteen months earlier.