#213 The Old Broken Cross, Northwich, Cheshire : 2000 to 2016

On my second ever canal trip The Old Broken Cross was our first port of call after leaving Preston Brook on Saturday 8th August 1981 - sadly I don't have any photographic evidence!

It stands on the bank of the Trent & Mersey Canal on the outskirts of Northwich along a stretch of the cut we don't visit very often and, although we'd passed by a couple of times, we didn't actually visit the pub again until lunchtime on Monday 4th September 2000 on our return from Manchester.

This photo gives the perfect illustration as to just how close to the pub a boat can moor. As ever, I recall little about the interior of the pub, but that it was pleasant enough and served food!

Our next visit was at lunchtime on Saturday 2nd September 2006.

It was on this trip that we realised just how close to the centre of Northwich the pub is, having visited the town from the River Weaver the evening before. It's difficult to tell what changes, if any, there were in the intervening years as I chose to take the picture from the road bridge. This time we moored even closer to the pub!

Our next visit to The Old Broken Cross was an evening stop on our way back from Manchester on Sunday 5th September 2010.

The outside had undergone a refurbishment, but little else had changed. However, our recently discovered knowledge of local geography stood us in good stead when it became apparent that there was no food on offer on this Sunday evening, so we ventured into Northwich for sustenance.

This was the view of the pub (and our mooring) the next morning.

Our most recent visit to The Old Broken Cross was at lunchtime on Saturday 13th August 2016.

The pub had undergone another refurb and inside it was pleasant and served food, so we were happy!

This is the view from the other side, again to show just how close we'd moored!

#137 Ye Olde No.3, Little Bollington, Cheshire : 1991 to 2013

Being based in the Midlands means that we didn't often get to navigate the canals 'oop north', but since we've been hiring boats we can now explore further afield.

Back in 1991 we embarked on a journey to take our boat Emma Jane from Adlington (near Wigan) to her ultimate destination of Cowley Peachey (near Uxbridge).

One of the pubs we stopped at was Ye Olde No. 3 at Little Bollington on the Bridgewater Canal.

This was the view from our mooring on the evening of Sunday 21st July 1991. I don't recall anything about that visit, but we did spend the whole evening there so food must have been available.

We have been past the pub in the intervening years on trips that took us to Manchester (and back to Lapworth) in 2000 and 2010. Both times we stopped at Lymm as it offers more pubs to choose from.

Our Easter trip in 2013 was from Preston Brook to Manchester (and back) which gave us the opportunity to revisit Ye Olde No. 3.

This was the view from our mooring at lunchtime on Saturday 30th March 2013. Fewer changes than you might expect in 22 years, but the electricity pylons are all still in place!

This is the view from the front of the pub. As we walked into the pub, suddenly it all came back and I recognised the place! It didn't seem to have changed in 22 years. It has a cosy interior with lots of canal memorabilia. The food was good and I was left wondering why we'd not stopped here in previous years!

#129 Parr Arms, Grappenhall, Cheshire : 1991 to 2013

This will be a short entry as I've only ever drunk in the pub once! Our first visit was at lunchtime on Tuesday 22nd July 1991 as part of a trip from Wigan to Lapworth.

As I recall it was a pleasant village pub, but over 20 years later the memory hasn't dragged out anything significant.

After we'd finished our journey in 1991, our boat Emma Jane went further south and for a few years was based on the lower reaches of the Grand Union Canal.

In the intervening years we've passed through Grappenhall a couple of times, but not stopped there.

This year, in a break from tradition, our Easter trip took us into Manchester, starting from the Claymoore Narrowboats hire base at Preston Brook. On our way back we took the opportunity to revisit the lovely village of Grappenhall.

This photo was taken on Sunday 31st March 2013. There are two pubs in the village, almost next door to each other, and we went in the Ram's Head first where we had a few pints and our evening meal. It was getting a bit late and I was keen to have a last pint in the Parr Arms...but it was closed having finished serving at 10:30 pm!

On my (very) brief visit inside it appeared to be a proper 'old school' village pub, but sadly with 'old school' opening hours! So we had another one in the Ram's Head!

As you would expect in 22 years the exterior had been extensively changed, but it is now a Robinson's pub and back in 1991 it was Greenhall Whitley. One trivial point to finish - it is unusual to get an orange car in one picture...but in two, 20+ years apart, that's just 'spooky'!

#100 Two Boats, Long Itchington, Warwickshire : 1981 to 2012

Well, I've made it to my 100th entry on this blog and I thought I'd treat you to a special post. Although I only started to take a picture of every pub we visited in 1986, I found this photo from only my second ever trip on Emma Jane in 1981.

This first visit to the Two Boats was on the evening of Wednesday 19th August 1981. I don't remember much about the pub in those days, but it was very convenient being right on the canal bank. That visit was close to the end of an epic canal trip that had started out from Preston Brook 12 days previously. For the first week of the journey we'd been up against the clock because of a breach in the canal near Audlem on the Shropshire Union and to get to Birmingham on time we were sometimes travelling for 12 hours per day non-stop. Once we'd reached Birmingham, the next week was much more leisurely with the replacement crew of Andrea and Jackie!

I did visit the Two Boats again in 1984 (29th August), but didn't take a picture!

Circumstances conspired to make it so that our next stop at the Two Boats was on the evening of Sunday 24th August 1997 at the beginning of a journey that would take us to Nottingham and Leicester.

Over the intervening 16 years the pub was no longer a Whitbread house and, miraculously, the chimneys had disappeared!

We returned again the next year, on our way to Oxford.

This was at lunchtime on Tuesday 1st September 1998. We would have been here earlier in the week, but we'd broken down in Warwick and had to wait two days for an engineer to fix the engine! Remarkably in just 12 months the outside had been completely transformed. However, inside it was still pretty much the same. It was a small pub with two rooms that made very good pub food and whenever the sun's out it can get very busy...but they've always managed to cope with the demand whenever we've been there.

It was another three years before our next visit, this time on our way to Aylesbury.

Another lunchtime stop, this time on Sunday 26th August 2001 and you can see how busy it was on that Bank Holiday Sunday. Again there are more changes to the outside signage!

The next visit was at lunchtime on Sunday 17th August 2003 on the way to Leicester.

Remarkably, the Two Boats was unchanged!

Over the following years we visited every other year and there were few changes, but the photos are shown below.

Lunchtime on Saturday 28th May 2005...first time we'd ever managed to moor right outside!

Lunchtime on Thursday 31st May 2007 - taken from Emma Jane, just as we moored up outside again (we don't like to have to walk too far for our lunch!!)

In 2009 we stopped at the Two Boats twice. Firstly on Sunday 24th May 2009 and then again at lunchtime on Friday 11th September 2009.

The only visible change was the removal of the trellis that had been there since at least 1998!

Again, it was another two years before we returned and again, the Two Boats had undergone another transformation!

Not only had it been whitewashed (again), but it was now a Charles Wells pub. This was at lunchtime on Sunday 29th May 2011 and I was expecting to see radical changes inside as well, but was pleasantly surprised to see that it was unchanged and, more importantly, the landlord was still the same. The food was also just as good as ever!

We did visit again that year on Emma Jane's last voyage, this time on the evening of Saturday 5th November 2011.

This was our last visit (so far) on our canal trips, but I did drive by in 2012 to get a more up-to-date shot.

This was on Sunday 26th August 2012 and I'm happy to report that the Two Boats is still as busy as ever, especially when the sun is out!