Thursday 22nd September

Another lovely morning in such a lovely place :-) I’m so glad that Robert and Laura had had some nice weather. We set off down the Leek Arm when suddenly we saw a spooky looking tower looming out of the top of the hillside. It had been the water tower of the County Asylum at Cheddleton, later renamed St Edward's Hospital. It was built between 1895 and 1899 and provided an overflow to the nearby St Georges Asylum in Stafford and St. Matthew’s Asylum at Burntwood when it opened to patients in August 1899 with accommodation for 600. Set in lovely woodland it has been carefully converted into residential use since closure of the hospital. By far the most impressive feature is the water tower now converted into apartments on 8 floors. The water tower in its original use could have held 161 tones of water. We were soon back at Hazelhurst Junction and the services at Park Lane Wharf then all too soon we were back at Endon Wharf where it was time for Robert and Laura to leave us :-( Once again I had tears in my eyes – as much as I love Richard and we are so happy together in our own company it’s always nice to have visitors so, consequently, it’s always sad when they have to leave. I do miss my children when we are away, we have always been very close so it is hard. We poodled on down the Stockton Brook Locks and then Engine Lock and stopped where we had moored on Sunday. We didn’t move on after lunch as we felt that it had been all go since we got back to Mary H twelve days ago so we have promised ourselves a couple of short, slow days :-)