Thursday 25th – Monday 31st August 2016
We decided to pop into Chorley Thursday & explore the town before we spend the weekend trading, although the festival doesn’t start until Saturday we decided that as we are here we would have a trial run on the Friday, mainly because the bank at Botany Bay is so silted up & uneven that mooring close is difficult & even we you get as close as possible there are still dangerous holes alongside the boat. We mentioned to the management that they need to speak to CRT & get this sorted if they do a 2nd festival next year & want to attract more trading boats.
Chorley is a pleasant enough market town, you can catch the bus from the road bridge just past Botany Bay Mill. It has all the usual shops plus a great outdoor & indoo market 3 days a week, there is also a collectors\antique market at least once a week.
As in much of Lancashire, the town’s wealth came principally from the cotton industry, although it also became a major market town due to its central location between four other towns. As recently as the 1970s the skyline was dominated by numerous factory chimneys, but most have now been demolished: remnants of the industrial past include Morrison’s chimney and a few other mill buildings, and the streets of terraced houses for mill workers. Chorley is the home of the Chorley cake.
Chorley cakes are flattened, fruit-filled pastry cakes, traditionally associated with the town of Chorley in Lancashire England.
They are a close relative of the more widely known Eccles Cake but have some significant differences. The Chorley cake is significantly less sweet than its Eccles cousin, and is commonly eaten with a light spread of butter on top, and sometimes a slice of Lancashire cheese on the side. A Chorley cake is made using currants, sandwiched between two layers of unsweetened short crust pastry whereas an Eccles Cake uses flaky puff pastry which after baking is normally a deeper brown in colour. The other difference is that the currants in the Eccles Cake are often concentrated together in the middle while in the Chorley and Sad Cake the fruit is usually evenly distributed.
It is not uncommon to see some sugar added to the fruit, or sweeter raisins or sultanas used. These sweeter varieties are sometimes referred to as “snap”. Locals often refer to Chorley Cake as Fly Pie.
We did our shopping for supplies in Iceland & at the till they offered to deliver, that’ll do for me, so we returned on the bus with our market & charity shop purchases to await our delivery. Just as we got back Jeremy & Rachel arrived by taxi with their supplies from Aldi.
On Friday we set up for trading, there was a car boot sale on too today, we made quite a few sales & told lots of folk about the festival weekend, as they seemed unaware.
Jeremy & Rachel’s friends Simon & Debbie arrived today too, looking forward to a very sociable weekend.
Good Company
Simon, master chef!
The mill lights up when the sun goes down!
Everyone put their bit in for a fab feast!
Master chef still cooking!
Saturday, Sunday & Monday we traded by day & BBQ’d by night with our new found friends, it was a very hot sunny Bank Holiday & the festival was a great success for Botany Bay & us as traders. Rachel won “Best dressed Boat” with Phoebe Joan decked out with flags, bunting & the flowers we got them from the mill for their anniversary. Part of their prize was a brass plaque celebrating 200 years of the Leeds & Liverpool canal.
We were the only trading boat at the festival, due to the fact it was under advertised too late. It was a great learning curve, we actually took some “proper money” & are now ready for the Leigh festival now in the company of 4 other traders.
0 Miles 0 Locks 0 Swing Bridges 0 Hours
nb That's D'riculous 
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