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• Home • History • Needlework & Craft Courses • Location, Hours • Contact • Links • Watercolours by Sheila M Webster
Audlem Mill
The Mill, known locally as Kingbur Mill, was built around 1916 (rather later than most early industrial buildings served by canal) for the miller H Kingsley Burton. It was always a corn and animal feed mill, and was operated by him and then his son John Burton until the mid 1960s, when it was sold to another local miller, but it closed a few years later.
Soon after, the top floor was converted into living accommodation, and the lower floors became the canal shop. This work was all done by John Stothert, who ran the shop until he retired in 2006. The single storey extension at the rear, which housed the original Crossley oil engine which operated the mill via belts, rods and pulleys, is now used by British Waterways for canal maintenance purposes. Much of the other internal mill fittings, such as the hoppers and chutes, still survive, and are incorporated into the shop.
Over the years, the business has become one of the best-known shops on the canal system. The new owners will continue in this fine tradition.
Click here for more information, and here for photos of the Mill before conversion 40 years ago.
Shropshire Union Canal
The majority of canals in the UK were built from the 1760s through to around 1820, but this one of the three separate canals that later joined to become the Shropshire Union Canal (the “Shroppie”) was a latecomer, being completed in about 1835, just at the start of the railway era. And just like the railways, the civil engineering is bold. Designed by one of Britain’s foremost engineers, Thomas Telford, the canal strides almost straight across the countryside, both in deep cuttings and on high embankments - completely the opposite of early canals, which hugged the contours and had relatively minimal engineering works of any scale. Locks came grouped together in flights, which saved a significant amount of time for the boatmen. The Audlem flight of 15 locks is the longest on this canal, dropping it 90 feet on to the Cheshire plain.
Like much of the canal system, the Shroppie was built to take ‘narrow boats’, 70 feet long and 7 feet wide, which typically held about 20 - 25 tons of cargo. Some operated “fly”, i.e. 24 hours a day, with occasional crew changes and rather more frequent changes of horse. The Shroppie Fly pub next to Audlem Mill was thus named, reflecting the fact that the warehouse it was converted from was served by fly boats.
The Shroppie main line joins the west midlands canals at Autherley Junction, near Wolverhampton, and runs roughly northwards to Ellesmere Port, where a junction was later made with the Manchester Ship Canal - a distance of just over 66 miles, with 46 locks. The Shroppie had a branch leading into Wales (now popularly known as the Llangollen Canal), a very busy holiday route, with the astounding Pontcysyllte Aqueduct across the River Dee valley, near Llangollen. The aqueduct and adjacent canal were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009.
The Mill, known locally as Kingbur Mill, was built around 1916 (rather later than most early industrial buildings served by canal) for the miller H Kingsley Burton. It was always a corn and animal feed mill, and was operated by him and then his son John Burton until the mid 1960s, when it was sold to another local miller, but it closed a few years later.
Soon after, the top floor was converted into living accommodation, and the lower floors became the canal shop. This work was all done by John Stothert, who ran the shop until he retired in 2006. The single storey extension at the rear, which housed the original Crossley oil engine which operated the mill via belts, rods and pulleys, is now used by British Waterways for canal maintenance purposes. Much of the other internal mill fittings, such as the hoppers and chutes, still survive, and are incorporated into the shop.
Over the years, the business has become one of the best-
Click here for more information, and here for photos of the Mill before conversion 40 years ago.
Shropshire Union Canal
The majority of canals in the UK were built from the 1760s through to around 1820, but this one of the three separate canals that later joined to become the Shropshire Union Canal (the “Shroppie”) was a latecomer, being completed in about 1835, just at the start of the railway era. And just like the railways, the civil engineering is bold. Designed by one of Britain’s foremost engineers, Thomas Telford, the canal strides almost straight across the countryside, both in deep cuttings and on high embankments -
Like much of the canal system, the Shroppie was built to take ‘narrow boats’, 70 feet long and 7 feet wide, which typically held about 20 -
The Shroppie main line joins the west midlands canals at Autherley Junction, near Wolverhampton, and runs roughly northwards to Ellesmere Port, where a junction was later made with the Manchester Ship Canal -