Whitchurch and the Fenn’s, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses

On Monday morning (the Fourth of July!), we woke up to gloriously sunny skies with only a few wispy cirrus clouds.  Of course, this did not last until even noon, but we enjoyed it while we could!

Meandering up the lovely Llangollen Canal, we passed out of Cheshire back into Shropshire (with still no signs of cats).  We passed through three separate locks and then came to the Grindley Brook Locks, which consist of a flight of three locks and then a staircase of three locks.  We are becoming more familiar with canal terminology as we travel.  Flights of locks have stretches of water in between them called pounds where boats can wait for their turns.  Staircases are contiguous, with no pounds.  There were volunteers at the Grindley Brook staircase, and we have encountered them at a couple other places.  There is a sense of camaraderie among the people traveling up and down the canals as well as the volunteers, as everyone helps each other with the paddles and gates.

We stopped near the old market town of Whitchurch, where we were met by a friend of Paula and Andrew’s, Susie, and her brother Ward and his son Andrew.  They are traveling together by car through the countryside.  We walked the mile into town together along the Sandstone Trail and then enjoyed delicious and inexpensive pub meals at the Anchor Inn. After that, they went on their way, and the four of us wandered around town, gathering a few provisions for dinner.  The most prominent building in the center of town is, of course, the church.  St. Alkmund’s Parish Church sits in a high position in town, and its square tower can be seen from the distance.  The clock on the outside of the top of the tower was made by the town’s highly regarded clockmakers, the Joyce family, who have been making clocks in Whitchurch for at least eight generations.  In fact, other than Blue Cheshire cheese, their clocks continue to be the primary source of Whitchurch’s economy. 

St. Alkmund's Parish Church, Whitchurch

St. Alkmund’s Church is a Georgian structure made of local red sandstone.  Inside, it is spacious and light, with Romanesque columns and arches.  We stayed briefly and then walked through the town and back to the canal and Pegotty. 

Nave and apse, St. Alkmund's

The sky continued to darken as we continued up the canal, and it was raining by the time we stopped for the night by Prees Junction, in a region of peat mosses known as the Fenn’s, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses National Nature Reserve.   This area constitutes Britain’s third largest lowland raised bog.  Naturally created after the end of the last Ice Age by two long moraines, it was devastated by various commercial and military activities.  Peat was cut out of the bogs, making way for invasive species.  In the early 1800’s, when the canal was constructed, drainage caused subsistence, and this adverse effect was compounded when the railroad came through in the second half of the 19^th century.  During WWI, it was used as a rifle range, and during WWII, it was established as a decoy site.  The peat was set afire to trick enemy bombers into thinking they were over the Mersey countryside.  In the 1990’s, it was acquired and set aside as a nature reserve.  Vast areas of trees were removed and mosses were re-introduced.  Now rare plants and animals are beginning to thrive.

After dinner, Peter and I walked along the towpath and then into the bogs just as a rainbow appeared near the horizon.  I had to jump from one tussock to another to avoid a wet area, and Peter noticed something amazing.  He then jumped up and down for me to experience it.  The whole surface rose and fell and a hollow sound resonated from the ground.  The land we were standing on, it seems, is almost floating on the captured rainwater held within the bog.

The Mosses

At 10 p.m., the long twilight was still continuing, but we prepared for bed as we anticipated entering Wales (or Cymru—pronounced “Coom-ree”—in Welsh) shortly after taking off from the mooring in the morning.