For any of you who follow that Chertsey Woman’s blog, she announced on Friday that she had managed to aquire a mooring for her big Woolwich motor boat Chertsey at Kings Bromley on the Trent and Mersey canal in Staffordshire. This inspired me to put a little together of what I have found out about the wharf and buildings, which, incidently are listed buildings/structures.
The Trent and Mersey Canal is a total of 93 miles long from Shardlow inNottingham to Preston Brook, Runcorn. Work began on its construction in 1767 and took ten years to build and cost £300,000. By 1810 canal traffic had increased to 100 boats a day with 30 stopping at Kings Bromley Wharf. When this canal was constructed in the second half of the 18th century, the then lord of the manor, John Newton, insisted the canal was kept a mile away from Bromley Hall. The money to build the canal was raised by a share issue bought by local landowners, manufacturers and merchants. Around £30 per acre was the purchase price of the land, and the canal's original estimated construction cost was £130,000, but at completion it cost around £300,000.
Bromley Wharf brought a great deal of canal trade through KingsBromley. At its peak, thirty boats stopped there each day. This included a fortnightly load of coal, from Rugeley pits, for the Edwards Creamery.
The creamery no longer exists but its buildings still stand and also it’s wharf.Today the wharf and it’s buildings are used as industrial units and workshops andhosts the moorings for a total of seven narrow boats including my boat Minnow and now Sarah’s Chertsey.
Mainly only pleasure craft now use the canal, the development of a new marina along side Kings Bromley Wharf and a general increase in the number of people who use leisure craft on the canals, mean that once again the canals are busy with traffic and the section between Fradley Junction and Great Haywood Junction has to be the busiest section of canal in Britain.
Just for you Sarah, your mooring is virtually where the two existing boats are moored on photo.
(Photo's courtesey of Kings Bromley Parish Plan)
As always, and especially when you bring Chertsey here,
Don't bang 'em about.
Blossom
I'll do my best! Thanks Blossom. Looking forward to many leisurely chats.
ReplyDeleteHope when we passed you in January we didn't bang 'em about! We slowed down more than ever to admire Minnow.
ReplyDeleteMy 3rd great grandfather a John Day born in Hertford c 1788 was supposedly a captain on one of the canal boats owned by Pickford & Co,that docked at Kings Bromley wharf and subsequently stole from a passengers belongings c October 1812 was tried at Staffordshire c jan 1813 and given a term of 7 years to the colonies.
ReplyDeleteIs the wharf shown the area that this may of happened.