Staffordshire, England

Etruria put-in (Stoke-on-Trent)

Parking — Waterworld's own car park, within the Festival Park development about 400m from the launch, is free for the first 30 minutes, then £3 up to 2 hours 15 minutes and £6 up to 10 hours. The Etruria Industrial Museum car park off Kilndown Close (ST1 4RB), about 550m away, is a further option, though its own charges are not published.

Access — The route from the Etruria Industrial Museum car park to the canal side crosses a staircase footbridge, which is not accessible to wheelchair users; a step-free approach to the same bank is available via Castlefield Street and Lower Bedford Street, which also has disabled parking. The Canal & River Trust's boater facilities point at Etruria, on the adjoining Caldon Canal, is closed; the Trust directs users to Black Prince Marina instead.

Season — The canal here is navigable year-round, but the Harecastle Tunnel to the north runs a seasonal booking system each winter, from November to February: boaters must book passages at least 48 hours ahead, the Trust does not allow unbooked passages, and it limits the available slots to specific mornings on set days of the week.

Regulations — The Canal & River Trust requires a small craft licence for paddleboards on this waterway, available as a short-term visitor permit or through Paddle UK membership. It permits canoes and paddleboards through a canal tunnel under 400 metres with good sight lines, and through one of 400 to 650 metres only with good sight lines and a one-way traffic system in place; it does not allow passage through any longer tunnel except as part of a sanctioned, managed event with prior permission. At around 2,676 metres, more than four times that limit, the Harecastle Tunnel north of this junction is a hard boundary. The Trust prohibits unauthorised open water swimming across the network, permitting it only under the supervision of a licensed club.

This slipway serves Festival Park Marina on the Trent and Mersey Canal at Etruria, near the canal's junction with the Caldon Canal in Stoke-on-Trent. Etruria was the site of Josiah Wedgwood's pottery works before the 1986 National Garden Festival redeveloped the area into Festival Park. The Canal and River Trust manages the canal here and requires a paddling licence.

Etruria Junction is where the Trent and Mersey Canal's 93-mile main line meets the 18-mile Caldon Canal, built to carry limestone from the Churnet Valley quarries and to feed water to the main line's summit level. A statue of James Brindley, engineer of the Trent and Mersey main line, stands near the junction. From the put-in, paddlers can continue along the main line or turn onto the Caldon Canal, which climbs straight away through the Etruria Staircase Locks before winding east towards the Peak District.

The Trent and Mersey Canal's course through Stoke-on-Trent, including this junction, is a designated linear Conservation Area. Immediately beside the Caldon Canal's staircase locks stands the former Jesse Shirley's Bone and Flint Mill, a Grade II* listed building and scheduled monument built in 1857 to grind materials for the local pottery industry. It is now the Etruria Industrial Museum, a well-preserved example of a nineteenth-century British steam-powered potter's mill.

North of the junction, the main line runs towards the Harecastle Tunnel at Kidsgrove. Subsidence closed the original tunnel, built by Brindley, in the early twentieth century; the parallel tunnel Thomas Telford built and opened in 1827 remains in use and, at around 2,676 metres, is the fourth-longest navigable canal tunnel in the country.

Nearby

Show on map

Costa Coffee (Marina Way)

A coffee shop on Marina Way, within the Festival Park development beside the marina.

The Rabbithole Tea Room

A tea room in Stoke-on-Trent city centre, about 1.5 miles from the launch by road. Full address: 9 Glebe Street, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 1HP; no OSM element could be found for it, so no coordinates are given.

Conditions to check

Lock

The Etruria Staircase Locks (Locks 1 and 2), on the Caldon Canal a short way from the junction, mark the start of that branch's climb away from the Trent and Mersey summit level.

Source

Lock

The top lock of the Stoke flight sits immediately south of the junction on the Trent and Mersey main line, marking the start of the descent through Stoke-on-Trent.

Source

Boat traffic

Festival Park Marina adjoins the launch, so moored and manoeuvring narrowboats use the marina entrance and junction.

Source

Log in to add a photo. Paddled here? Add the first photo — we review each one before it goes on the page.

Questions

No questions yet

Ask about parking, access or conditions. Anyone who knows this water can answer.

Log in to ask or answer. Share what you know about this spot.

Comments

No comments yet.

Log in to comment. Add conditions or a photo to this spot.

Save your own spots

Keep the places you launch, check the wind and shelter before you go, and log every paddle. Add a spot to the directory too, and other paddlers will find it. Free to start.

Get started, it’s free Log in

Location data

OpenStreetMap

View this point on OpenStreetMap