Shanks facilities

Thursday, 12 March 2009 22:01

We left Handsacre this morning and it was a warm sunny morning, lovely! We soon entered the industrial bit that is Armitage. The Armitage Shanks factory is here and being a boater you must let me talk toilets for a bit!

It always amuses us to see rows of stacked loos, shrink wrapped for convenience (groan) and waiting their inevitable fate!

Armitage Shanks factory

I was chuckling even more when I spotted this notice

It points right between the old factory and the new one - there are plenty of facilities here abouts I think!

We were also amused to see that railtrack have their own version of  "DEFRA rash"

Two eateries follow. One is a building full of character, Spode Cottage. It such a shame that a beautiful 17th century farm house has been demoted to a pub/restaurant. We have never eaten there but today it looked more attractive than it has in the past with only one large poster outside.

The next eatery we have eaten in a couple of times. The Plum Pudding was a modern up market restaurant, serving good food and sometimes the diners were treated to live music. I have no idea if it as good as it used to be!

Armitage tunnel is a tunnel no longer, apart from the extreme narrowness. The roof was removed in 1971 as the tunnel was subsiding due to nearby coal mining. Mind you the bridge over the beginning almost makes it a tunnel.

Narrow Armitage tunnel

We stopped for lunch and shopping in Rugeley. The town itself is nothing special but it is redeemed for the boater as Morrisons is 2 minutes away from bridge 66.

As the weather was still good, although there were looming black clouds, we decided to move on out into the countryside. The River Trent is crossed at Brindley Bank.

The new Bypass Road bridge is an impressive sight as the new A51 screams by

As we left Rugely behind, the canal wound its way through open vistas of Canock Chase accompanied by the River.

Cannock Chase in the distance

We knew that we could moor at Wolseley Bridge (70) as we had in the past. There were a few boats before the bridge opposite Bishton House but we moored just past the bridge. The traffic over the bridge and the distant  A51 is not too noisy and this evening I could hear the sound of church bells.

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