Meeting up with friends, Ian and Sandra, for the first time after lock-down, involved plotting a location roughly midway between us with a decent weather forecast for the day and the prospect of a spacious and welcoming cafe. This led to an intriguing little corner of the country that was quite new to us, but as is so often the case when exploring hitherto unseen pockets of Britain, it turned out to be a real gem.
Great Haywood in Staffordshire was our base for the day -
more specifically, it was the Canalside Café, where we were very well received.
All the necessary precautions of the age we now live in were provided. The premises
are modern, light and airy, the service is excellent, the food is good quality and
provided in substantial quantities.
The village lies at the junction of the Trent and Mersey and
Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canals. Canal-side walks also take in the
River Trent, itself, the existence of which made this lowland corridor such an
attraction for communications in the first place. The direct rail route from
Manchester to London via Stoke provides the back-drop on an embankment to the east,
meeting the West Coast Main Line proper just to the south at Colwich Junction.
The WCML from Stafford has just negotiated Shugborough tunnel at this point and a short walk west from the canal tow path takes you into the grounds of Shugborough Hall, now open again as a National Trust attraction, including its herd of distinctive English longhorn cattle. From the bridge facing the south portal of the tunnel, we were in time to see Class 66 No. 66192 at the head of the Ashburys to Montsorrel empty mineral wagons, followed shortly by an Avanti Liverpool to Euston express in the form of Class 390 Pendolino No. 390006.
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