Mooring on the Shropshire Union : Chester and north thereof.

[Justin Smith]

We are hiring a boat from Beeston and hoping to cruise down to Chester then to Ellesmere Port. What is mooring like on that stretch ? Partly can you find them at all (around Chester and at the Boating Museum), but also mooring near Ellesmere Port, re. motorway noise and potential problems from locals ?

[pearley]

My memory is that there are 3 or 4 visitor moorings with rings on the way but you might have to hunt in the grass to find the rings.

 

We've moored at Ellesmere Port by the museum a couple of times, if there was any noise it didn't bother us. I believe you can moor in the basin but when we've been there the locks have been blocked.

 

Fantastic views over the Mersey.

[Arthur Marshall]

Plenty of moorings at Chester as you come in to the town, lots of rimgs opposite Mecca and you can piggy back on their wifi... Not as noisy as you'd think. Below the staircase is the basin, nice but can be noisy late if the pub has music on  which it usually does. There's mooring by the Museum car park if you can't get into the place itself. Ellesmere Port used to be rough but I have heard it's calmed down a bit now.

[Justin Smith]

Thanks for your advice.

So would you say that if we cruise down to Ellesmere Port can we be reasonably sure of finding a mooring ? It is probably more important to be confident about this as it's a dead end !

 

Interesting sidelight on hire boating, we would like to go to the waterways museum though we have been before. But when one is hiring a boat at great expense (because it's the school holidays it'll be over £1300 for the week ! ) it could be considered a poor use of the boat to do so, i.e. have it just moored up for half a day. Similarly as regards looking round Chester. This is the downside of boat hiring......

[Mac of Cygnet]

Stoak is a good quiet mooring (past the bridges) with a rural feel and a farm track leading to the good village pub (or was when I was last there several years ago!).

[Arthur Marshall]

I used to spend Christmas halfway between Stoak and Chester, moored up in the woods. Very peaceful.

I seem to remember there's plenty of mooring rings alongside the Boat Museum car park, as well as in the museum area itself. It's a fair few years since I was there - if you're worried,  ring the musem and ask them.

[Tony1]

 

I was in the basin last week and for most of the time I was the only visitor boat there.

Odds are you'll find a spot no problem.

At the moment they don't come down and actively check on who's there, but they are preparing to introduce a booking system for the summer, so it might be worth calling them at the boat museum to ask if you are clear to come in.

Bear in mind when you ask about space, they will only check their records of people who have formally signed and paid for mooring.

So if there are any rogue boaters who didnt check in, reception wont know about them when you ask if there's space. 

 

What I would do is, before you go to all the trouble of doing the locks, disembark someone on the offside so they can nip down and make sure there is a visitor mooring free. You can fit at least five boats in there, and possibly a couple more if you moor opposite the Holiday Inn.

Its very very unlikely to be full at the moment, but if it is you can just turn around and head south again, and moor a mile or two south of there. 

 

There were boats parked just outside the museum and things look safe enough there, but I'm a scaredy cat, and I wouldn't moor there myself unless desperate.

Also, those spots seem busier than down in the basin, so you might not get moored there anyway.

There are a fair few young scallies knocking about the town, and they are not far away from the canal. 

 

Watch out for the first lock going in- they leave the offside paddle up all the time for some reason, and you need to close that in order to get the water level to go down in the lock, especially since there is only one paddle working at the other end of the lock. Don't forget to open the paddle up again once you're through though. 

 

I had to pull a small log out in order to get into the first lock, and there was a lot of weed around there, but to be fair I didn't foul the prop, just something to watch for. 

 

There are plenty of spots  between Chester and Ellesmere Port. I'm moored at Stoak, for example, and Cheshire Oaks retail park is less than two miles away, so its really handy if you have bikes. 

If you moor near to bridge 134 (close to Chester Zoo) you can sometimes hear the lions calling to each other at night- very strange. Its also a handy spot to reach the shops in Upton. 

 

Final point- under one of the bridges (cant recall which one, I think it was between 142 and 145) I was told there is a shopping trolley in the canal. If it's there, it will be on your left hand side as you head north, so going under all those bridges keep to your right as much as possible.

 

Edited March 20, 2022 by Tony1

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

10 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

Watch out for the first lock going in- they leave the offside paddle up all the time for some reason,

I understand it’s a safety thing keeping the locks full.

Should any visitor to the museum fall in.

[Tony1]

1 minute ago, Goliath said:

I understand it’s a safety thing keeping the locks full.

Should any visitor to the museum fall in.

 

Ah yes, someone did mention that and I'd forgotten. 

The museum is usually very quiet, but I arrived in the early afternoon on a Sunday, so there was some serious gongoozling going on as I was struggling the get the boat in through the weed. It was only when I noticed the 6ft log and got that out that I was able to get into the lock, but I gave the spectators an excellent show of general incompetence, and I think I may be on a few camera phones. 

I did shout that this would be the 'how not to do it' video.

 

[TheBiscuits]

27 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

If you moor near to bridge 134 (close to Chester Zoo) you can sometimes hear the lions calling to each other at night

 

Time a walk up the path when they are about to feed the elephants, and you get closer to them than you can in the zoo itself.  Times are published on the website I think.

 

It's rather obvious which the elephant house is - not much else needs gates that heavy duty except the rhinos and they aren't next to the path.

[enigmatic]

Related question: if you were to leave the boat over the weekend and get a train somewhere, would Chester be fine, or would you be better off stopping at Nantwich embankment? 

[TheBiscuits]

1 minute ago, enigmatic said:

Related question: if you were to leave the boat over the weekend and get a train somewhere, would Chester be fine, or would you be better off stopping at Nantwich embankment? 

 

Depends where you need to go.  The railway lines run in some very odd directions around there, so look at a network map before deciding - it can halve or double the cost and time if you choose the "wrong" station to start from.

[Tony1]

I think a boat left in Chester basin would be fine for a few days. I was there for 2 weeks and didn't see any issues at all, apart from the odd bunch of youngsters having a laugh as they were heading home from Telford's Warehouse pub.

However, I suspect the basin is probably now getting busier every day, so the odds of finding a spot on any given day you turn up are probably not that great.

 

I couldn't comment on the risks of leaving a boat moored on the stretch above the staircase locks, as I didnt try it.

If left near to other boats it might be ok, but they might up sticks next morning and leave your boat alone there, it might be a different risk, who knows.

 

But you have a lot more safe options before you reach Nantwich. I moored a couple of miles out of town close to Christleton. It seems a well-to-do area, but it's a towpath so there was still the very occasional scally- but very few of those, and I would risk leaving my boat there for a weekend. It was a pretty short bike ride in to the station- about 2.5 miles I think.

 

You could also moor outside Tattenhall marina. There's a bus service half a mile away that gets you into Chester in half an hour or so.

 

 

[David Mack]

1 hour ago, Tony1 said:

I moored a couple of miles out of town close to Christleton. It seems a well-to-do area, but it's a towpath so there was still the very occasional scally- but very few of those, and I would risk leaving my boat there for a weekend. It was a pretty short bike ride in to the station- about 2.5 miles I think.

I have left the boat moored on the towpath at Christleton behind the closed Old Trooper pub for a fortnight without any problem.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

By the Cheshire Cat is nice and safe too. 
20min (?) walk into town

[Justin Smith]

On 20/03/2022 at 09:22, Mac of Cygnet said:

Stoak is a good quiet mooring (past the bridges) with a rural feel and a farm track leading to the good village pub (or was when I was last there several years ago!).

Isn't that right next to the M53 and M56 ? ! ?

[Mac of Cygnet]

43 minutes ago, Justin Smith said:

Isn't that right next to the M53 and M56 ? ! ?

 

I did say past the bridges!   About half a mile past the Motorways by a farm track bridge which leads to the village.  A surprisingly rural mooring where for some reason the Motorways are not intrusive, being muffled by trees, I think.  I've moored there a few times.

[Justin Smith]

On 20/03/2022 at 15:09, Tony1 said:

 

I was in the basin last week and for most of the time I was the only visitor boat there.

Odds are you'll find a spot no problem.

At the moment they don't come down and actively check on who's there, but they are preparing to introduce a booking system for the summer, so it might be worth calling them at the boat museum to ask if you are clear to come in.

Bear in mind when you ask about space, they will only check their records of people who have formally signed and paid for mooring.

So if there are any rogue boaters who didnt check in, reception wont know about them when you ask if there's space. 

That's a good idea.

[staying afloat]

We did a similar trip last year at August Bank Holiday week and didn't have any issues mooring along the route. Ellesmere Port has a water point at the boat museum and a decent space to turn around - you don't have to go through the locks at the museum itself. It was an option for us to do that and there was space at the holiday inn there, but the holiday inn moorings are a bit noisy with an AC unit or something running 24/7 for the hotel. we moored outside the museum, but if we did it again we would turn around and moor a few hundred yards back on the towpath as it was a little noisy overnight.

Again Chester basin you have a water point (the rubbish is at the top of the staircase (which usually has lock keepers on duty)) and it is easy to turn around and there are good moorings, the further away from the pub in the basin you are the less noise from the pub. Also outside the walls for mooring gets a little narrow but we moored there too and it was  surprisingly quiet and very convenient for the shops and sights of Chester. after the basin and boatyard there weren't many suitable spots to moor for Chester.

Just after Christleton you have lots of mooring and the Broughton Heath Park and ride is used by many boaters to access Chester. Also near the park and ride are some good supermarkets

Enjoy!