East Marton to Salterforth

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Cellar at the Anchor Inn, Salterforth



A fairly short day today. From East Marton it is just the three Greenberfield locks to reach the summit pound. We decided to stop at Salterforth to take on water and have a lunchtime drink at the Anchor Inn. That turned into three drinks (or was it four?). The pub pre-dates the canal, the embankment of which partially buried the ground floor of the building. They built an extra story on top, but the old ground floor rooms - now below the water level of the canal - have become saturated, and due to the limestone building materials a forest of stalactites and stalagmites have formed in the unused rooms. For a suitable charitable donation we got the barmaid to take us downstairs for a look. I was quite impressed. it is like someone has hung thousands of strands of floor-to-ceiling spaghetti.

After dinner on the boat we (Niall, Andy and I) returned to the pub where they were having a quiz night. It was quite busy, and amusing to see the quizmistress getting completely confused whilst attempting to give out the answers. We participated in the final game - a version of Play Your Cards Right - but our numbers wern't called, although Niall seemed to participate anyway. Afterwards we had a good chat with a number of locals and boaters.

East Marton to Salterforth: 4.9 miles, 3 locks