Loughborough

We didn't stay long, just one night, with time for a wander round the town, to the park and a visit to Tesco yesterday morning.

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Carillon Tower in Queen's Park

One day we might get to hear the carillon playing. It is played regularly on Sunday afternoons,  from Easter to September. The tower was built as a war memorial, completed in 1923. The idea of building a carillon as a memorial came from the association of carillons with Belgium, where so many soldiers died during the first world war. It is 152 feet  high and the 47 bells inside were all cast at the Taylor Bell Foundry in the town.

Alongside our mooring some of the blossom was opening out, looking so pretty.

Last night we moored in Kegworth, listening to the aeroplanes coming in to land at East Midlands airport.

After a walk into Kegworth this morning we moved on to the junction at Trent Lock, where last time we came this way we went on up the Erewash canal, and then on to Nottingham and the River Trent. Today we made our way up river to the start of the Trent and Mersey Canal and Shardlow.

At Derwent Mouth lock just above the junction of the Trent and the Derwent rivers the first of the Trent and Mersey mile markers.

 

The other end of the T&M is at Preston Brook where it joins the Bridgewater Canal.  It opened in 1777 and made connection with 9 other canals and branches.

Tonight we are in Shardlow, where I shall be staying for a couple of days while Ian returns to Kent. 

Loughborough - Shardlow

12 miles,  7 locks