We set off a little early as we wanted to do a trip round Paradise Mill at
1145, but that was not to be.
While Diana had Royal Oak electrical swing bridge open a boat came up behind
us so I waved them passed, in return they
offered to do Broadhurst Swing Bridge a manual one.
Just before we got to Broadhurst a boat pulled out between us, true to there
word they opened the bridge and waved us both through but after that the boat
that had pulled out got barely over 2 MPH. At the swing bridge there was also a
boat going in the opposite direction and he got waved through as well, even with
all that hold up the boat that stopped to open the bridge and let 3 other boats
through before coming through himself and then closing up, still caught up with
us by Gurnett Aqueduct Visitor Moorings where he stopped. We were only able to
pass the boat ahead when he stopped for water in Macclesfield and we were only
going about another 300 yards.
We were about to pull in to the 24 hr moorings just before bridge 37 when a
boater coming the other way said the visitor moorings the other side of the
bridge were much better and completely empty so we carried on to them and he was
right, there are a row of floating pontoon moorings from just passed the bridge
to the winding hole.
The old Hovis mill in the background has been
redeveloped since last time we were this way and is now looking very smart.
By the time we had walked down to the
Silk Museum in Park
lane it was mid day, so we booked two places on the 1 pm tour and went to
Weatherspoons for lunch which is conveniently just round the corner. Here again
Weatherspoons have taken an old building and tastefully
converted it for modern use, It was originally St Michael's vicarage and then
became the home of the Useful Knowledge Society and later addition a Technical
School.
We had an interesting afternoon at the museum with the conducted tour of
Paradise Mill which still houses a row of silk
looms as well as other equipment used in the
manufacture of silk. There were 6 of us on the tour and one couple tried their
hand on the loom.
We also saw how the punch cards were cut to control the loom which enabled
the patterns to be printed as well as how the silk was twisted to make the
threads up.
It was after 4 pm when we got back to the boat and decided to move on before
mooring for the night. By now the weather had warmed up quite a bit and the sky
had quite a bit of blue in it, we carried on for a little over an hour to
Bollington where after
crossing the aqueduct we moored just before Clarence
Mill on the end of a row of boats on the visitor moorings. The mill is so big
and in such a location it is impossible to get a good photograph of it. You can
just see the bows of the last boat on the moorings in the left of the
photograph.
Today’s Journey
7¼ miles in 3¼ hours
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