Water Weekend
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W3 – Whaley Bridge’s unique Water Weekend |
W3 – the Whaley Bridge Water Weekend takes place on Friday 8 June, Saturday 9 June and Sunday 10 June 2012.
Whaley Bridge Town Council has provided substantial grants to this event since it was launched in the millennium year. Generous local businesses sponsor W3, and a host of other businesses support the event with advertising in the official programme, delivered to every house in Whaley Bridge by The Review.
Most of W3′s festive fun takes place around the canal basin, the picturesque ‘end of the line’ of an arm from the Peak Forest Canal. Free boat trips are the unique main attraction, with music, dancing, craft stalls, food and nearby pubs to add to the party mood. W3 was instrumental in persuading a fair to visit over the weekend – now an integral part of the summer calendar.
Free trips: waiting in the June sunshine for their boat to come in
The Water Weekend was a success from the start. In 2010, as the event entered its second decade, the free boat trips broke all records: an astonishing 1,400 passengers enjoyed the canal experience in our little armada of boats.
Little armada: three of the trip boats at the Water Weekend
The canal basin, once visited by Princess Diana, has a grassy, wooded area known as The Royal Green. Apart from the spot where hundreds of people saw Diana, it is the area where many activities take place, including Punch and Judy, and where the boat trippers queue for free tickets and wait patiently for their boat to arrive.
Across the water, a covered stage provides the setting for a non-stop variety of music and dancing. In recent years, a runaway success has been the visit by meerkats, those stand-up, cute little African animals made famous by TV commercials.
One of the boat trips takes people on the Heritage Trip to Bugsworth Basin, reopened after years of voluntary work restoring this early Industrial Revolution gem. Passengers hear a full commentary of how limestone was brought to Bugsworth, processed, then carried further down the canal to places such as Stockport and Manchester, and beyond. Bugsworth was once the biggest inland port in England.
In the green: the canal is a beautiful setting for a boat trip
Other trip boats, including Phoenix, take people on the shorter journey under the green trees as far as the canal junction. Phoenix has a romantic history. It was formerly a canal narrowboat , North Star, which was vandalised, burned and partly sunk on the canal near Marple in 2005. Months of hard work by two young brothers, Paul and Michael Dawson, restored the boat. It ended up smaller than the original 42ft. Phoenix made its maiden voyage for W3 in 2006, and has been in service over the weekend since.
Fuller information about the 2012 Water Weekend will appear on Whaleybridge.com closer to the event and on the WWW website at:
Contacts:
- Barry Rudd, chairman: 01663 733 003 or 07836 258 883
- Sam Gray, secretary: 01663 719824
- Eveline Hughes, treasurer: 01663 733 597 or 07916 257 292
- James Middleton, fundraising: 01663 733224