boat trips, sun and an unusual canal proposition

Just to let you know that we are running two fish and chip suppers a week Friday night 7th March and Saturday night 8th March, and also operating the public trips too on the Sunday, but at slightly different time, they will be an hour later than our usual times.

Its been another glorious day here at Norbury with unbroken sun and blue skies all day long, it really does make a big difference to the place and it sort of comes to life, long may it continue!

I was talking with an elderly gentleman recently in my local pub, a very interesting chap who has lived his whole life in this area and around the Shropshire union canal, we were chatting about a man called Richard Whitworth who lived at a place called Batchacre hall which is situated by the canal at Shebdon, any way I popped in to my local last night and the Chap had very kindly photocopied some pages of an old book and a map, the map showed a canal  which ran from Bridgeford to Newport and linked the river Sow which would also be linked to the Trent and thus via the Newport canal which would link with the river Severn, I read the text with interest and it transpired that Whitworth had written a book in 1766 at the age of 32 called "The advantages of inland navigation" amongst other proposals was this one joining the Trent with the Severn via a new canal, the canal would run adjacent to his hall at Batchacre; Now I had heard tales of this Whitworth and an idea that he had to build a canal to the hall for training men for his army and sailing ships down the canal, I used to think that it was a short canal linked to the Shropshire union canal, hard to imagine really? but he was proposing a new canal as the Shropshire Union canal didn't exist at he time, I really thought it was just a tale from the towpath but now seeing it in print is great, and that is exactly what he was proposing to do, bring ships to the middle of nowhere via a new canal and train a small army, of course all this was before the Shropshire Union canal was built!

Regards
Simon