Shardlow

Shardlow is located just within the Derbyshire border. There was a settlement here at the time of the Domesday Book, when the area belonged to the Abbey of Chester and the village was known as Serdelov. Shardlow was once an important port on the River Trent and a horse-drawn ferry was used to cross the river. This was replaced in 1760 by a toll bridge and the stone giving the toll charges can still be seen on the roadside approaching the modern Cavendish Bridge. This replaced the old bridge, which collapsed in 1947.

After 1777, when the Trent and Mersey Canal was opened, Shardlow became a canal port, one of only a few in the country. With Liverpool, Hull and Bristol now linked by water, the warehouses here were quickly filled with heavy goods of all descriptions that could be carried at half the cost of road transport and with greater safety.  Many of the homes of the canal carriers and their warehouses survive to this day and the port is now a modern marina, linked to the River Trent, and filled with all manner of pleasure barges.

Many of the old cottages in Shardlow were swept away by 1960s development but some were saved when much of the canalside was designated a conservation area in 1978. There are still some fine houses remaining that were built by the wealthy canal merchants. Broughton House, built in the early part of the 19th century is just one example. The Shardlow Heritage Centre is housed in the earliest of the old canal warehouses, the Old Salt Warehouse, and has exhibitions and displays about Shardlow’s heyday as a canal port. The outstanding Shardlow Marina covers 46 acres, of which the Marina itself is 12 acres, all set in beautiful rolling countryside. The marina has moorings for up to 365 boats, with berths available for up to 70-feet narrow and wide-beam boats.

The Parish Church of St James, though it looks much older, dates only from 1838 and sits on land given to the village by the Sutton Family of Shardlow Hall.