Wednesday 27th July

Another early start but we had 24 locks to do. The 8 Delph Locks started just around the corner and were fairly easy. The locks are all fairly deep and dropped us down 85 feet from the Dudley No 1 Canal to the Stourbridge Canal. Its great going down flights as you have such a lovely view of the valley below. Just around the corner we came across a very low bridge called Brettell Lane Bridge and we had to stop and take the chimney off – I also lost three marigold flowers :-( The next flight of locks was the Stourbridge Flight which consists of 16 locks which dropped us down a further 145 feet. Locks 9 and 10 are telescoped together and were once a true staircase – but now there is just a gap of about 40 feet. I was working this lock and as I emptied the upper one I looked over and wondered where on earth the water was going to go but it appears that there is a culvert under the adjacent cottage. We stopped at Lock 12 and tied up outside the Red House Glass Cone which lies in the heart of the Stourbridge glassmaking industry. It was built at the end of the 18th Century and was used for the manufacture of glass until 1936 and is now one of only four cones left in the United Kingdom. Reaching 100 feet into the sky, the Cone enclosed a furnace around which men made glass for 140 years. At the bottom of the flight we made a sharp left turn up towards Stourbridge Town Wharf where we turned round a stopped for the night just up from the wharf.