Day 84 - into Stone, a busy and compact town, home of Admiral John Jervis.

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7 locks, 399 in total.







I had a hot water bottle last night – it was very cold for August but the sun today has made up for it.







Two groups of locks today – 4 at Meaford and we did only 3 of the ones at Stone. There was a lot of traffic both ways which meant waiting for our turn at the start but then whizzing through the locks on a one-out/one-in system which halved the work. Luckily we arrived at Stone by lunchtime as there are only about 8 visitor moorings and this is a popular place for stocking up on everything. There are also 2 boatyards, one of which has a chandlery with stock that caters for most contingencies. We hadn't been moored long when a boater travelling faster than he should decided to reverse into the one mooring left (which incidentally was too small for his boat). Despite warning shouts, his bow swung wildly and crashed into a moored boat on the other side of the canal; oh there was a lot of tut-tutting from the onlookers!







Stone takes its name from the cairns on the graves of two 7^th century Mercian princes, killed by their pagan father for practising Christianity. The old priory of St. Mary and St. Wulfad, was built in 1130 and fell down in 1749. An Act of Parliament was needed for the parishioners to rebuild it and the new church of St. Michael and St Wulfad was consecrated in 1758; it cost £5000. It is a plain but not ugly building in unusually open ground and on a slope. Around the inside edge of the perimeter is a path made of old gravestones; I don't know if the now-open ground was the cemetery at one time.







We are moored by a large area of flood plain for the R. Trent – don't know if it's the Trent in its infancy. The area is grassed and landscaped with reedy and damp hollows – Hattie loves it. She even plucked up courage to go past some swan feathers for her swim.

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Photos

An ex-boatyard at Meaford...
.... now a lovely house and garden.

A topical horse-jump.
Taken quickly whilst helming - hence tree in the foreground!

Water overspilling the lock.
This is a very deep lock and I don't think they've got the levels right on the approach as an area of towpath was flooded too.

Metal frieze.
This is just one part of the frieze in the pedestrianised High Street - it depicts the histry of Stone, in the manner of a 2-minute Shakespeare play.

Wooden statue at lock entry.
Should help the concentration!

More towpath repairs.
These are where we're moored. In 4 hours the only work done was by one man operating a pounding machine to flatten the sand and stones. This took about 30 minutes. There were 6 men there plus 2 cars and 2 vans. They left about 3 pm and a little later someone came and trickled a bit of tar around some of the edges.

Sadly I couldn't read the inscription.
16th and 17th century dates were there though.

Churchyard.
There were 2 large areas of mixed garden flowers - absolutely beautiful. I counted more than 12 varieties.

The library - bigger than it looks!
There was a stone plaque saying that the building was erected in 1868 for the benefit of those attending Stone market by Edward Jervis Jervis, Viscount St. Vincent - presumably a son or grandson of the Admiral. The plaque was almost totally obscured by a trough of flowers commemorating the centenary of the local Rotary Club.

Lights across the canal....
... will they come on this evening? - I'll let you know.

Fire beacon basket by the canal....
...now has an alternative use.