Our June 2nd museum

Sunday 2nd June 2019

What is the collective noun for 20+ cyclists on a towpath? – rotation? circulation? revolution? – we settled on a Belfry ;^)

Heading North from Little Bollington, we soon swapped nice rural for urban industrial with dreek weather to match the surroundings. There were many lycra clad runners, cyclists, walkers and serious keep fitters using the towpath. It amused Graham that all the Peel Holding signs state that cycling on the towpath is prohibited.

I had noticed a good decline in the amount of unpleasant graffiti of every genre – and then . . . .  In Stretford there was some very bright, clever and artisdtic murals painted. And that was when the sexually explicit nastiness started – defacing the pleasant original graffiti – no where else! Sorry ‘Bumbag’, your lovely work has been ruined.

At lunchtime we passed the Kellogs factory near Trafford, complete with original entrance for grain to arrive by boat, the smell was  so good that we’d have happiliy settled to freshly cooked cornflakes for Sunday dinner.

Having cruised directly through Worsley several times before we decided to stop this time to investigate the Duke of Bridgewater’s big idea – now I get it. A visitor centre/ educational facility is currently being built to show off the entrance to the mines. We’ll have to visit again when it’s done, it should be a good showcase.

We’d planned to eat in Worsley this evening but it would be too noisy to moor there for the night and so we pressed on once our walk was over. I did house(boat)work whilst Graham got very wet out on the back deck.

We moored up at Astley Green having found out that the Lancashire Mining Museum was there and open until 5pm. It’s not as grand as the name suggests being only open for three afternoons a week. We arrived with one hour to go before closing. A very knowledgeable older lady found us and made sure that we saw everything there that we’d not already seen. That included the wild bees nesting inside the cable drum of the steam crane. Having shown me in great detail, the uniform tunic that belonged to a member of a German coal mine band of the 40s or 50s, she espied another couple of visitors that she hadn’t shown around and so we managed to escape. This was 15 minutes after they were due to close, lovely lady. They are working so hard to revitalise and promote the museum.

We’d planned to eat a Sunday roast at the Old Boat House, a canalside food pub at Astley, but they could not fit us in. We trecked half a mile up the hill to the Bulls Head, which meant we’d earnt a dessert as well. We called into the Coop on the way back just as they were double reducing the short dated grub – that’s tomorrow sorted! salmon, strawberries and chocolate eclairs all paid for with Divi.

The reason for today’s blog title is that exactly one year ago today we found the Anson engine museum in Higher Poynton – it must be something we are destined to do on 2nd June every year ;^)

Brenda