Small Bears at Bugsworth Basin

After breakfast on the third day of our summer canal journey, when it was time to go out explore Bugsworth Basin, it was so cool we decided to put our duffle coats on.  We had not expected to need them in June and were glad Polar had told us to pack them. 

When we arrived the night before, we though Bugsworth was simply a sort of marina, in a pretty green valley, but Polar and Grizzly explained it had once been a bustling industrial site.  Hanley Bear found a bright red plaque which told us more about it.  Hanley was pleased that the plaque matched his coat.

We found a little truck of the type that was used for moving limestone down to the boats.  It was good for climbing on but no longer went anywhere as it was only on a tiny section of track.

'Imagine there being dozens of these, all full of rock, trundling about the basin, pulled by very strong cart horses,' said Hanley.  'Victorian small bears would have to be very careful not to get squished!'

Hanley soon found another bright red plaque and an information board with more about how the stone, quarried all around the basin, was brought down to the boats by the little trucks on rails.

It was all so peaceful now that we bears found it hard to imagine it had once been full of busy workers, trucks and boats.

Grizzly told us that he and Polar had first visited in 1993 and that back then, the whole site was silted up and the bridges and wharves were all hidden under trees and weeds.  It must have taken hundreds of hours of work by the volunteers who cleared and restored it to make Bugsworth as nice as it is today.

There is a nice pub that does good meals right beside the canal, which is very useful for all the boaters who visit.  Hanley Bear thought this gate made of horseshoes was brilliant!

On our way back to our boat, we found a super model of what the site looked like when it was a busy industrial site.  We could see the canal wharves, just as they are now, but also sheds and workshops and tramlines that have all disappeared.

Near the visitor centre and little shop was a display of pictures drawn by human cubs who had visited.  We thought they were very good.  There were more human cubs there during our visit, learning to paddle canoes.  Polar said we would have to be very careful when we turned our boat around that we didn't bump into them!

We had another run all around the site before we left.  Hanley decided it was his favourite place on all the canals and waterways he had visited, until Endon and I reminded him that it was in Derbyshire rather than Staffordshire, when he changed his mind.

'Well, it's not as good as the junction at Etruria and the staircase locks,' he said, picking somewhere right in the middle of Stoke-on-Trent.

However, Hanley Bear was soon going to see even more amazing canal architecture and more of those round, red plaques, and so will you in my next posts!