Cole Mere is like a giant’s tummy-button filled with icy water. It has steep sides and is really deep. It was made when a huge chunk of ice melted. It was dumped and buried by a glacier in the last Ice Age 11,000 years ago. A canal however, is nothing like a tummy button. It’s a very long trench filled with water. This one was built over 200 years ago. Before jets, motorways and even railways, canals carried everything. Horses would pull special barges called ‘tub boats’. They’d sometimes pull up to ten boats at a time.
If you follow the towpath over the bridge you will pass Blake Mere and eventually reach Ellesmere after just over 2 miles (4 kilometres).