Seventeen of us ignored the atrocious weather forecast and assembled together in the Car Park of the Star Inn for a 5 mile circular walk centred on the village of Acton in Cheshire, a 30 minute drive from Kidsgrove. It is a walk that uses the Llangollen Canal and the Shropshire Union Canal so it is level walking. The Star is the only Inn locally and does not normally open for lunch, but they agreed to put fish and chips on especially for us.
Leaving the car park we crossed four fields of newly planted maize, which will be quite a challenge later in the year when it’s fully grown, eventually we joined the Llangollen canal following it until it joins the Shropshire Union at Hurleston Junction,where we followed the SU back to Acton, arriving in time for our fish and chips at our exclusive Star inn.
The weather had not been to our usual standard,but with occasional drizzle and odd glimpses of sun it was considerably better than expected.
Points of interest
Hurleston reservoir is a drinking water reservoir which is fed by the Llangollen Canal. The canal itself was constructed in 1795 and was called the Ellsemere Canal in 1846 when it was part of the Shropshire Union Canal. In 1945 it burst it’s banks and washed away a railway track killing the driver of a passing train,because it fed the reservoir it was repaired and in the 1980s it was renamed Llangollen Canal.
The Shropshire Union Canal was the last trunk narrow canal route to be built in England. It was not completed until 1835 and was the last major civil engineering accomplishment of Thomas Telford.
The name “Shropshire Union” comes from the amalgamation of the various component companies (Ellesmere Canal, Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal, Montgomery Canal) that came together to form the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company.
Graham Tunnicliff