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Nick Sommerlad tries life in the slow lane on a relaxing UK narrowboat trip on the Trent and Mersey Canal, which connected the River Mersey to the River Trent, meaning that goods could be moved inland
When I announced this trip to my children, the first question they had was not about narrowboats or canals. It was, “Why Stoke-on-Trent?”
OK, so it’s not a mainstream summer holiday destination. But for us it was a jumping-on point for the Trent and Mersey Canal. This was the first of the UK’s long-distance canals to be built, connecting the River Mersey to the River Trent, meaning that goods could be moved inland from the port of Liverpool ultimately to Hull.
Over 93 miles it passes through Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire, and it is the middle section that we explored for seven days. We started at the Black Prince base in Stoke, a short distance from the spot where the famous local potter and businessman Josiah Wedgwood cut the first sod to mark the start of the construction of the canal in 1766.
Wedgwood was one of those pushing hardest for the canal to be built. Business was booming thanks to an order from Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, but Wedgwood’s increasingly popular pottery was not suited to being transported along 18th century roads.
A canal would be a much better solution and he had the money and the powerful friends to make it happen. As we set off from the former site of Wedgwood’s Etruria Works, home to the iconic ceramics firm for 180 years, we pass some of Stoke’s famous bottle-top potteries which proliferated along the canalside.
But it is the countryside beyond that we are aiming for. Time slows down on a canal. Just because you are only a few miles from somewhere doesn’t mean you will be getting there any time soon. The speed limit is 4mph and, in this first section of the trip, the cluster of locks slows time down even further.
Within minutes of departure we arrive at one of the deepest locks of the trip. The principles of operating the thing had been explained to us but turning that into a slick nautical operation was a challenge. These are amazing 250-year-old pieces of engineering – I had time to ponder this as the skipper, glued to the tiller, watching my wife and children grapple with the windlass. This turns the spindle that opens the paddle, allowing us to continue our journey southwards.
Thanks to the guidance of a passing couple, who happened to be narrowboat owners, we soon had our first lock under our belts. The current Wedgwood factory, five miles from the old one – or three hours of cruising and locks, which became our new unit of distance – is well worth a visit.
The factory tour is fascinating, even for someone who didn’t consider himself interested in ceramics. We overnight in Stone, where Proven Pizza is a hit with the kids. We pick strawberries at Canalside Farm and wander around the National Trust’s Shugborough Estate.
At Rugeley we abandon ship for a few hours and hire bikes from John and Diane at Rugeley Bicycle Repairs for a lovely off-road trip across Cannock Chase. Holidays always seem to involve lots of waiting for people to get their stuff together at the start of a day. But here the mooring ropes can be slipped in minutes and everything we need is already on board.
Steering is simple enough but concentration is required. Things can go haywire pretty quickly, even at 4mph, and reversing is a bit of a lottery. The crew soon get the hang of the locks. Which was just as well as there are 40-odd on our trip. We are told one story, possibly apocryphal, of a family of canal-newbies like us who moored up for the night in a lock.
We laughed but it does feel unnerving to be given responsibility for a 20-tonne lump of floating metal, even if it does move at walking pace. The last time I went on a canal boat holiday I was one year old. I can’t say it made much of an impression on me.
But one anecdote has become a family favourite. My dad apparently found himself caught out, in a comedy moment nobody had time to photograph, with one leg on the canal bank and the other on the canal barge. The two slowly parted company and dad ended up in the canal. Something similar feels rather inevitable on our holiday five decades later.
It is our unlucky older dog Eli, all legs and little common sense, who finds himself with two paws on the shore and two on a boat that is inching sideways. But he soon dries out again after a run along the towpath. At times, our voyage turns into something like a civilised pub crawl, pootling along from one wonderful bankside hostelry to the next, with some quite beautiful countryside in between.
The canals teem with wildlife. We pass families of ducks, geese, swans and moorhens. We catch the flash of a kingfisher and, we think, a glimpse of a mink slinking across the towpath. Our home for seven days and nights is Mabel, a 52ft modern, clean and comfortable narrowboat rented from Drifters.
She is roomy but not so long as to be tricky to navigate. At the front of the boat is the living and cooking area, with a table and fully equipped kitchen. Cooking is done on gas but there is a microwave which runs when the engine is on. The table collapses to make a double bed, while the rest of the sleeping quarters are towards the back of the boat.
Mabel is set up so we had one double bed and two twins. The living space is cosy. And with two dogs in tow even cosier. Let’s just say it is best if the family tries their hardest to get along nicely. But once under way, and if the weather is good, then there is space to stretch out. There are outdoor seating areas at the front and back.
And if you want a bit of time to yourself, you can jump off and stretch your legs. Canal life, we decide, definitely suits us. We begin to envy those we meet who had abandoned land for a narrowboat home. That is, until they tell us about the winters, frozen in and running low on diesel.
Then it is time to choose which winding hole to use to turn Mabel around and head slowly back to Stoke.
Book the holiday
- Drifters Waterway Holidays offers more than 500 canal boats for hire from 40 bases across England, Scotland and Wales, with more than 3,000 miles of waterways to discover.
- Drifters’ narrowboats range from 32-70ft and can accommodate from two up to 12. Hire prices for 2025 start at £630 for a short break (three or four nights) on a boat for four, £875 for a week. Tuition is included in packages. drifters.co.uk
- A Princess 4 Signature boat from Black Prince in Stoke-on-Trent in July is on offer from £2,000 a week, book by October 31. black-prince.com
- More info at canalrivertrust.org.uk scottishcanals.co.uk
