Historic Bugsworth Basin.

Monday 14th to Thursday 16th September, 2015 at Marple.
On Monday, M had to go home for a couple of nights. We walked down to Marple Railway Station and found, to our surprise, that it had been the inspiration for Agatha Christie's famous detective Miss Marple. It seems that Ms. Christie travelled regularly on this line in her youth and adopted the name of the station for her heroine.

The station is understandably proud of the connection and one of the platforms has a magnficent display of posters, each made to represent one of her books. Actually, to be acurate, all but one of her books - as a notice on the station asked for any information concerning the theft of one of the special posters. An example of life copying art?

The train, when it arrived, was also something of a surprise. It was very basic, the interior was more like an old bus than a train! Not what one would have expected on a line connecting two major cities such as Manchester and Sheffield!

While M was away, R busied himself with jobs. Yesterday, the towpath had been muddy and going up the 16 locks of the Marple flight had meant walking on the roof a lot - so R washed MM down, all 60ft of her. He also rebuilt the stern gland (where the propellor shaft goes through the hull) as it had started to leak a little. In between, he might possibly have visited Costa for a restorative coffee (or two, or three!). MM's mooring was right at the top of the locks and very close to the town centre.

M returned on Wednesday afternoon and, after buying a "few bits" at the local Asda, we decided to get a few miles under our belt before dark.
Our evening mooring was a lovely spot where we had moored before last year, with spectacular views across the valley; the setting sun just caught the hillside in the distance.

Thursday morning dawned misty, so much so that we could hardly see the hills on the other side of the valley.

After breakfast, we set off towards Bugsworth Basin at the southern end of the Peak Forest Canal. No locks today, but there are two lift bridges and two swing bridges to negotiate.

At Newtown, we passed the old Brunswick Mill that is now occupied by the confectionery firm Swizzels Matlows Ltd., identified by the very sweet aroma being blown across the canal by powerful extractor fans. Two ladies in white turbans and overalls waved enthusiastically and blew us kisses from one of the windows. Perhaps it was the same two ladies who waved to us last year? We liked to think it was!

Bugsworth Basin, at the end of the Peak Forest Canal was formerly a large industrial complex that included nineteen lime kilns as well as facilities to transship limestone and coal from tramway that extended into the Derbyshire Dales, to narrowboats in the basin for onward shipment across the country.

This historic site has been lovingly restored by a brilliant group of volunteers. It is now a very beautiful place, green and peaceful, but it must have been hell on earth when it was in full operation with nineteen limekilns belching out black smoke and dust, and workers pulling highly caustic quick-lime out of the furnaces by hand and loading it into narrowboats.
Our mooring was in one of the arms of the basin (MM is the furthest from the camera).

Next to the basin is a small hamlet that used to be called Bugsworth but has recently "gone up-market" and changed its name to a more acceptable "Buxworth". We prefer the old name and can see no reason to change it.

However, we did like the village school's version of fencing! This is fun!

A lovely sunset was reflected in the water of the basin.

Four Days: 6 miles, 0 locks and 16.7 hours.
Trip: 310 miles, 263 locks and 247.2 hours.