A Slitting Mill and Kickback Coffee.

 Sunday 28th and Monday 29th July 2024 at Kickback Coffee.

A beautiful early morning with not a ripple on the water. It looks like the arch opposite was once the entance to a canal arm that ran alongside a former warehouse, now converted to offices.

On Sunday morning, the four of us walked in to Lymm village for breakfast at The Coffee Shop. We found this shop last year and it has become our favourite place in the town. Breakfast was excellent. The Coffee Shop is right in the middle of the picture up the hill on the right.

Mr. Pearson's guide book mentioned a "Slitting Mill" in a gorge just north of our mooring, so in the comparative cool of the early evening, we went exploring. It was indeed a deep gorge carved out of solid rock, with a stream running through it. There used to be a dam to make a mill pond (long since gone). The foundations of the Slitting Mill, which opened around 1750, were excavated in 2005. The mill used to roll iron with two water powered rollers until it was about 3mm thick and then slit the resulting strip to make nails or barrel hoops. There were many similar mills in this area at the time until the advent of steam power in the mid 1800s rendered them uneconomic.

On Monday morning, M and Shelley went back in to town to the excellent butchers to collect meat that Shelley had pre-ordered.  M was very impressed by the quality of the meat and felt rather ashamed that she buys her meat in the supermarkets. Not only was the meat of excellent quality, it was also cheaper and she bought two days' dinner for less than £5! 

As ever, M stopped to admire the flowers on the way back and Shelley kindly posed for the photo. She has often said how much she loves our English gardens, which can produce flowers that would never thrive in Australia.

From this bridge across the canal it is just possible to see the high rise buildings of Manchester but you would need a telephoto lens to see them in a photograph.

Lymm is such a beautiful little village that it is tempting to stay longer, but we are on 48 hour moorings so we will visit it again on our way back.

Lymm Cross was built in the mid 1600s and was restored in 1897. At that time the sundials at the top were added with the inscriptions "We are a Shadow", "Save Time" and "Think of the Last". The old village stocks still sit below the Cross.

This house next to the canal is one of M's favourites. It used to belong to Harry Corbett, famous for his puppets Sooty and Sweep, which we all loved when we were young. The house is not for sale, which is just as well!

At the edge of Altrincham are these two, very nautical, apartment blocks.

We moored up outside "Kickback Coffee" where we moored last year (and the year before!).  It's in one of the old railway arches. We were pleased to see Toby stll working there and sat down for a great coffee and an ice cream with Shelley and Harley.

This afternoon, the  C&RT published an update on the Burscough leak; it said that passage was possible going slowly past the site while they decide what to do about it. Another bulletin will be issued on Friday 2nd August - so we will see what they say then. Hopefully, we will be able to continue but we want to make sure that, if we go past Burscough, we will be able to get back past it again on our way home. We do not want to get caught on the wrong side of it if the C&RT ends up closing it again and it would be an even greater problem for Shelley and Harley, who have flights booked back to Australia in September.

Today: 6 miles, 0 locks and 3.0 hours.

Trip: 120 miles, 71 locks and 63.2 hours.