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Trent and Mersey Canal - Part 2

Trentham Gardens to Middlewich

The next real landmark, apart from the huge Sainsbury’s Distribution Centre, is the Britannia Stadium the home of Stoke City football club. Stoke is a true example of what the canal system was all about with, now failing, industry either side of the canal. You can see the many potteries with their bottle kilns standing proud, also factories and mills that were serviced by ‘port’ areas such as Middleport and Longport.

In the centre of Stoke, west of bridge No. 113 is the Spode Pottery Visitors Centre. Stoke is also home to the Etruria Industrial Museum, housed in the old ‘Etruscan Bone and Flint Mill’ situated just below the staircase lock at the junction for the Caldon Canal .

Another landmark is the Stoke-on-Trent ’s Festival Park , the location of 1986 National Garden Festival (an attempt to revitalise Stoke-on-Trent ) and Marina is where Black Prince Holidays have their Stoke narrowboat hire base. There is also a pub and restaurant on the opposite side of the marina entrance.

As you pass through Etruria , under one of the bridges are the Etruria Murals. Is it 'Art or Graffiti' is the question we asked. We came down on the side of art – urban art. This is followed by a vast area undergoing redevelopment – the old Shelton (bar) Steelworks, that used to surround the canal on both sides for almost half a mile. Steel production at Shelton Bar Steelworks ended in 1978

Cruising now into the Middleport area with the old disused Middleport Pottery, a bottle kiln from which still survives today. Longport with the boatyard that is home to Stoke Boat builders is just beyond.

As you are leaving Stoke, visible from the canal, you will see Westport Lake to the west, where on a sunny weekends and bank holidays the pleasure seekers of the area come to admire the 16 hectares or so of lake surrounded by wooded landscape. Anglers pitch their bivvies and cast for that record breaking fish.

• Cruises to cruise
• Four Counties Ring
  • Middlewich Arm, SU
  • Shropshire Union Part 1
  • Shropshire Union Part 2
  • Shropshire Union Part 3
  • Shropshire Union Part 4
  • Staffs and Worcester Part 1
  • Staffs and Worcester Part 2
  • Staffs and Worcester Part 3
  • Trent and Mersey Part 1
  • Trent and Mersey Part 2
  • Trent and Mersey Part 3
• Llangollen Canal