Harnser's Travels: Winsford Marina

Tuesday, 2 June 2026

Winsford Marina

This morning I spent half an hour on the phone trying to sort a transit up through Hunts (easy and Vale Royal(the problem) Last night I booked Hunts for today and went to do the same at Vale Royal and there were no passages listed this month. So this morning I rang CRT and spoke to a young lady, she didn’t know the answers but contacted someone who did so at 10am we set off to Hunts lock to find 2 CRT chaps and two lady Volockies being trained. However just before we set of Rueben came by with an empty flat to take to the dredging, so now between us and the lock was a dredger, full pan, empty pan and a tug. I must admit I have never passed one like this before, under the arm of the dredger

Roger Alsop was on the bridge as we passed under it and I noticed he was taking photographs of us. He has kingly agreed that I could post this one of us heading for the dredger bridge on my blog.

At Hunts Lock we entered the smaller chamber, We actually arrived before our booking but it was all OK as they were there doing the training. We discussed our plans and after locking us through they drove up to Vale Royal to lock us through there .
We had some lovely reflections as we made our way upstream with mill pond calmness.

At Vale Royal the smaller chamber, the one that is in use is to the right of the larger one. We arrived before our locking team and when they arrived that had to first empty the chamber and swing the foot bridge that crosses the chamber before we could enter.

The flow on the river is almost undetectable at the moment and we had a good headroom under Newbridge Foot Bridge. We have been under when its much tighter.

There was plenty of water coming in, I think this is from a sewage works but I am not sure on that.

We carried on up to beyond the head of Navigation to Winsford Marina, when we arrived I counted 28 swans in there. As we went in they all swam out, I took care to make sure none were between Harnser and the moorings.

The name Winsford Marina is interesting, it consists of a hard edged basin with a free to use slipway at the mouth, a single tap and a free carpark. Not what most people would consider to be a Marina.