Caldon Canal

Because the Caldon Canal was promoted and built by the proprietors of the Trent & Mersey Canal Company, as such it is more properly called the Caldon Branch of that canal.[10] It was built to carry limestone from Caldon Low Quarries which was transported to Froghall wharf via three inclined tramways. Other important traffic for the canal was coal from the Cheadle Coalfield and ironstone from the several iron ore mines in the Churnet valley and Kingsley area. The canal was subject to considerable mining subsidence in the Etruria area, which eventually led to the need for an entirely new lock, Planet Lock, with a rise of just 3 feet (0.91 m), to adjust the levels. Water to the canal is supplied by three reservoirs and the River Churnet. Stanley reservoir holds 22 million cubic feet (670 Megalitres (Ml)), and joins the canal just below Endon basin, while Knypersley holds 41 million cubic feet (1,200 Ml) and joins the canal above Engine Lock. The final section of its feeder was originally the Norton Green branch, a private canal built at the same time as the main line, to service a colliery. Rudyard reservoir holds 122 million cubic feet (3,500 Ml), and its feeder, which joins the Leek branch near the Churnet aqueduct, follows much of the proposed route of the Macclesfield Canal extension to Leek.[6] Since the Caldon joins the summit level of the Trent and Mersey system, it is still a valuable supply for that canal too.

Although the canal was never legally closed, its traffic had declined to such an extent that by the 1960s it was almost unusable. A survey of it was carried out in 1960 by the Inland Waterway Protection Society, which had been formed in 1958 in response to the Bowes Committee report, which listed many canals which it thought should no longer be maintained. In April 1959, the government created the Inland Waterways Redevelopment Advisory Committee, whose responsibility was to assist schemes to redevelop canals that were no longer commercially viable, and the survey formed the basis of a submission to that committee.[11] With further threats of closure in 1961, the Stoke-on-Trent boat club organised a public meeting in Hanley and a cruise along the canal to Froghall in September. This attracted press coverage and local council support.[12] There was then a proposal by the Caldon Canal Committee for the National Trust to take over the waterway, and although this did not occur, the committee became the Caldon Canal Society, and worked with the British Waterways Board towards its eventual restoration.[13]

A narrowboat has just locked down into the Churnet river at Oak Meadow Ford lock

Staffordshire County Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council announced that they would make contributions towards the restoration in 1969.[14] The Inland Waterways Association held a boat rally at Endon in May 1971, to publicise the need to restore the canal,[15] and in February 1972 the government introduced a scheme to help local authorities to fund work on local facilities that were visually unattractive. Called "Operation Eyesore", it offered grants of up to 85 per cent for the work. Everything was now in place for the restoration, which was officially announced on 22 August 1972.[16]

Restoration of the main line to Froghall was completed in 1974,[17] but the Caldon Canal Society continued to press for more to be done. Agreement was reached on how to finance restoration of the Leek branch in mid-1977, and volunteer work parties began the task of clearing the route so that it could be dredged.[18] The main line from Etruria to Froghall and the Leek Branch were two of seven stretches of canal, formally designated as remainder waterways, which were re-classified by the British Waterways Act 1983. Under the act, a total of 82 route miles (132 km) were upgraded to Cruising Waterway standard.[19]

In 2003, many years of restoration work came to a close as Froghall Wharf, the southern terminus, was reopened to vessels. The work included a new wharf, refurbished toilet facilities and a new visitor centre. A disused lock, actually the first lock on the Uttoxeter Branch (see below), was reopened, as was the basin below it, and moorings for several boats were created. Much of the work was undertaken with volunteer aid, and funded in part by contributions from the European Regional Development Fund.

East portal of Froghall Tunnel

Because the roof of the Froghall tunnel has always been extremely low, the 2003 restoration included lowering the water level in the pound after dredging, and thus the headroom in the tunnel was improved to 5 feet (1.5 m) with a beam of 6 feet 8 inches (2.03 m).[20][21] Unfortunately the new moorings just past the tunnel remain relatively little used, as many modern boats are still too high to pass through the tunnel. A height profile gauge is located at the exit of Flintmill Lock 17 to indicate whether a boat has sufficient clearance to pass through the tunnel.[22] The low height restriction would similarly affect proposals to reopen stretches of the Uttoxeter Canal to boating.

The canal has one branch, the Leek Branch, which runs for 3 miles (4.8 km) and includes the 130-yard (120 m) Leek Tunnel. The Leek Branch, opened in 1800/01, meets the main line at Hazelhurst Junction, after crossing the main line on Hazelhurst Aqueduct grid reference SJ954536. Currently the branch ends some way from Leek town centre. The original length of the canal, extending to a basin on the south side of Leek Railway Station, was filled in during the late 1950s/early 1960s to allow for the building of the Barnfields Road Industrial Estate. (When it appeared that Harecastle tunnel, on the Trent and Mersey Canal, might have to close permanently because of mining subsidence, a bypassing connection between the Leek Branch and the Macclesfield Canal at Bosley was mooted; fortunately Harecastle tunnel remains open to navigation.)

A survey has been commissioned to investigate the possibility of extending the branch back into Leek.[25] In November 2009 a breach occurred just beyond the northern portal of Leek Tunnel. This resulted in the end section being closed for eight months while repairs were carried out. The cause of the problem was thought to be an old culvert. While the canal was drained, several other sections of embankment were re-inforced, and the repaired canal was reopened on 5 July 2010.[26]

Originally, the canal also had a further 13-mile (21 km) branch, which opened in 1811. Sometimes referred to as the Uttoxeter Canal, it ran from Froghall as far south as Uttoxeter in Staffordshire and had 17 locks. The canal was never a commercial success and in 1849 much of it was filled in by the North Staffordshire Railway Company and converted into the NSR Churnet Valley line from Leekbrook to Uttoxeter (which itself was finally closed for goods traffic in 1988). This line is still open as far south as Froghall, as a preserved railway, the Churnet Valley Railway.

Further south, at Denstone, several buildings including a church have been built on the line of the canal. Incidentally this branch line had the first automatic, train-operated level-crossing in the UK, at Spath, just outside Uttoxeter.[27] A few bridges from the Uttoxeter branch remain, with the occasional 'milepost', and Uttoxeter still has an area called "The Wharf". The Caldon & Uttoxeter Canals Trust has put forward plans to re-open the Uttoxeter Branch. Part of the old canal bed has been lost underneath JCB's head office and factory at Rocester, so the proposed route diverges from the original canal.

Another much shorter (approximately 800-yard (730 m)) branch of the Caldon main line, the Foxley, ran from Milton in the north east of Stoke-on-Trent through Sneyd Green to Ford Green Iron Works near Smallthorne, where it ended in two parallel basins of 100 yards (91 m) each. What little remains of the Foxley can be found in the Holden Lane Pools nature reserve, as well as alongside the footpath from the reserve to the Elizabethan Ford Green Hall. The position of the former junction is marked, on a sharp bend in the canal, at a pub called The Foxley in Milton.