Mountain-high ice stretched across north Shropshire 18,000 years ago. Very slowly, over the next few thousand years it melted, leaving behind the wonderfully distinctive landscape you see today: hummocky hills and hollows and dozens of shallow lakes or meres.
The canal wharf forms part of a network of canals that formed the main transport in the 19th century for industrial materials such as coal. Originally known as the Ellesmere canal, it is now called the Llangollen canal, and is still busy with narrow-boats used for pleasure. The canal leads to a place on the Mersey once called Netherpool, but which became known as Ellesmere Port, reflecting the significance of the canal. The canal is a great place to see wildlife. The hedgerows, banks and ditches provide safe thorough-fares for voles, field mice and hedgehogs, hunting grounds for bats, food and nesting places for birds. Look out for kingfishers and dragonflies.
The Mere at Ellesmere is the largest of the north Shropshire meres, plummeting to 19 metres in its darkest depths. Fish such as roach, perch, and bream make a fat living here. The waters, rich with rock minerals washed through the ground, are heaving with plankton – a feast for fish and dragonfly larvae. Look out in spring for water lilies and yellow flag irises in the marshy areas at the water’s edge. Wintering wildfowl roost on the Mere: widgeon, teal and pochard gather in rafts on the surface along with the occasional goldeneye, goosander and hundreds of black headed gulls. Pike, the most fierce of freshwater fish, have been known to snatch the odd gull for supper.