Welcome To Stone!

Being named after a heap of rocks dragged from the River Trent is not a promising start. At least with the move from Old English to our modern version, it has dropped the appellation: Stan.

These days, Stone promises much more - a selection of shops to rival Quality Street for variety, eating places numerically rivalling larger towns and canal-based interests, which are possibly unrivalled.

Crossing the Trent and Mersey Canal by the Star Lock via Stafford Road begins this tour. Rebekah welcomes you to Stone - she's a pint-sized beached canal boat.

At the Swan Inn you can buy a pint of Joules ales. The original John Joules brewed ale from 1758 and his bottle store, with its red cross logo, can still be seen from the canal. The modern Joules is a microbrewery, which inherited the name, but not, sadly, the telephone number Stone 1.

Another maritime note is struck by the anchor in Earl St Vincent Square. Admiral John Jervis's most famous victory was at the battle of Cape St Vincent when he and Horatio Nelson stopped the Spanish fleet from joining with the French and launching an attack on England.

Look on the skyline for the tower of the parish church of Saint Michael and Saint Wulfad. It houses eight bells, campanologists being members of the North Staffordshire Association of Change Ringers. Sadly, the church has to be kept locked most of the year but is open in the summer months when Stone has farmers' markets.

The stained glass is this church's greatest treasure. Charles Kempe or his successors made it all. Look for the dragon, which is the emblem of Saint Michael, the wolf (Saint Wulfad), the dove (the Spirit of God) and a wheat sheaf - Kempe himself. A guide to the windows and a CD of images is available.

On exiting the church, cast your gaze toward heavenward to admire the clock, built by Smith & Sons of Derby, at a cost of £195 and five shillings. It was started on Ascension Day in 1896 but has long since stopped. If you have £6,000 to donate, the rector, The Reverend Ian Cardinal (telephone 01785 812747), would love to hear from you, as that sum would get the clock going.

Now that 38 stagecoaches no longer pass through Stone each day and the A520 loops around the outskirts of the town centre, the pedestrianised High Street is a pleasant place to shop.

In Chantilly, they sell exotic lingerie (as well as Trinny and Susannah's Magic Knickers - which you may be glad of after Christmas) and the purest of pure make-up by Bare Escentuals. The shop, opened by Cynthia Hibbitt in 1987, also offers a range of beauty therapies and is a Clarins Gold Salon (there are only 76 in the UK). Chantilly also sells swimwear from designers such as Gossard, Rasurel and Sunflair.

Further along is Hammersley's - which sells sandwiches and cakes and has a small coffee. Moving from Market Drayton 30 years ago, fortunately the business retained baker and confectioner, Elizabeth Gough. It is she who creates the gorgeous cakes for special occasions on display in the window. Remarkably, if you supply Elizabeth with a picture or photograph, it can be scanned in edible food colouring onto sugar paste to create a unique cake.

Fleur is a coffee shop above a gift shop. Andrew Flower was running the shop as his wife, Fiona, was having a baby (not at the exact moment of my visit, you understand). It transpired that two customers sat by one of the pair of windows that overlook the High Street knew him from school days. They were Cath Gaskin and Cheryl Morley, now enjoying retirement and such fans of Stone that they'd walked seven miles along the canal to reach it.

Head through the Somerfield Passage towards the canal and you'll find the Canal Cruising Company, the oldest family-run narrowboat hire company in England, founded in 1948. It has a fleet of 15 boats in distinctive green livery, each named after women in the Wyatt family - which owns the company. You can hire a boat for a short break or a holiday, have your boat repaired or hire the dry dock to remove the detritus from your bottom (so to speak).

You can walk for miles beside the canal in either direction but I went only a few metres to meet Heather Lawton and Geoff Morris. They run Brindley's of Stone - a floating restaurant on their narrowboat Aquarius. Book Sunday lunch or an evening meal and their chef will produce a three-course meal from the tiny six-foot by eight-foot galley while you cruise to Sandon and back - a journey which takes about three hours. They take parties too - book now for Christmas (01785 812210).

Welcome To Stone!

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