When I announced this trip to my children, the first question they had was not about narrowboats or canals. It was, “Why Stoke-on-Trent?” OK, so it’s not a mainstream summer holiday destination. But for us it was a jumping-on point for the Trent and Mersey Canal.
This was the first of the UK’s long-distance canals to be built, connecting the River Mersey to the River Trent, meaning that goods could be moved inland from the port of Liverpool ultimately to Hull. Over 93 miles it passes through Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire, and it is the middle section that we explored for seven days. We started at the Black Prince base in Stoke, a short distance from the spot where the famous local potter and businessman Josiah Wedgwood cut the first sod to mark the start of the construction of the canal in 1766.
Wedgwood was one of those pushing hardest for the canal to be built. Business was booming thanks to an order from Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, but Wedgwood’s increasingly popular pottery was not suited to being transported along 18th century roads. A canal would be a much better solution and he had the money and the powerful friends to make it happen.
As we set off from the former site of Wedgwood’s Etruria Works, home to the iconic ceramics firm for 180 years, we pass some of Stoke’s famous bottle-top potteries which proliferated along the canalside. But it is the countryside beyond that we are aiming for. Time slows down on a canal.
Just because you ar.