Burslem

Today's the day ........................... to slow down

The top speed of a narrowboat is about 4 mph, so you have no choice but to take things easy as life slows down to walking pace. There's just nothing quite like it. You have the perfect vantage point to look at scenery, plants and wildlife as the boat gently glides along.

The Macclesfield Canal was one of the last canals to be built - its purpose to provide a short cut on the route from Manchester to London. It was opened on 9th November 1831, its route laid out by Thomas Telford, famed for his roads and bridges and engineered by William Crosley.

As with many canals, the Macclesfield passed into the hands of the railways until nationalisation in 1948. Commercial carrying finished in the 1960s ......................