Etruria

Got underway at 08:30 from our Milton mooring. It was looking a bit iffy weather wise, by the time we reached the first lock it was raining quite heavily. Through the staircase lock the Etruria Industrial Museum was open for tourists, so we made a stop and visited. The museum is centred on the Jesse Shirley's Bone and Flint Mill site and incorporates a visitors centre,Forge, Warehouse and Check Office by the Trent and Mersey Summit Lock.

Kiln

Recycled boiler used to warm a swimming pool.

The mill is powered by the canal but in this case steam and not waterwheel, an 1820's Boulton and Watt beam engine produces the power to turn the mills cogs, steam is raised by a rare hand stoked Cornish boiler

Beam of engine

Piston rod

Grinding room

Porcelain (bone china) is 50% crushed bone, perhaps we could get loved ones made into table ware.. you can get diamonds made from loved ones ashes after all, Sue would make a nice teapot.(Sue called me a cheeky so and so when she proof read this ...I should of said potty)

Good old Fred was opening something instead of knocking it down!

The gauging dock office where boats had their cargo gauged, and check office where skippers paid the toll.

We used the services at Etruria (named after an Italian area famed for pottery making) before moving back on to the Trent and Mersey and mooring at Festival Park for the night outside the Toby carvery. We popped into the Black Prince boat hire to buy a map of our next part of the journey. Plan is to head north on the Macclesfield canal to reach the Peak Forest canal. Then to the Llangollen canal via the Bridgewater canal. Of course we have to get ourselves through the three thousand yard Harecastle tunnel first.