house, located in the upper end of the village. Transport hub The River Trent below Shardlow is navigable all the way to the Humber Estuary, as is the River Soar which joins further downstream. Resultantly Shardlow was always an important transport hub and trading point, as wide-beam ships and boats traded cargo commercially with the packhorse trails going across the region. The tariffs charged for goods proceeding through the port enabled industrialist Leonard Fosbrooke to build Shardlow Hall, and later led to skirmishes being fought locally during the English Civil War for control of the strategic transport hub. The original London to Manchester road (formerly an important turnpike road, authorised in 1738, and now the A6), passes through the village, having crossed the Trent at Cavendish Bridge, designed by the Duke of Devonshire's architect, James Paine. By 1310 a rope-hauled ferry boat had replaced the last of a series of medieval bridges that crossed the Trent at what was known as Wilden Ferry. Later archaeological investigations in the Hemington Fields quarry revealed that the three wooden bridges were destroyed by floods between 1140 and 1309. During this period the unstable gravel bed of the Trent was affected by a succession of large floods, which meant that the river shifted its course significantly during this time, demolishing the bridges and an adjacent Norman mill weir. The charge to cross Paine's original 1758–1761 bridge during the years when it was subject to tolls was 2s 6d (12.5p) for carriages. It survived in service until 1947, when the Trent, swollen by a rapid thaw, swept its supports away. The British Army provided a temporary Bailey bridge, which was replaced by the present structure in 1957. Today the pediment of Paine's bridge survives as a preserved structure, with the toll charges engraved into it. Port Due to the discovery in 1720 of heated flint being able to turn the North Staffordshire reddish-clay into a lustrous white-sheen ware, from the 18th Century volumes of cargo shipped through Shardlow accelerated, supplying product and shipping ware internationally from the Stoke-on-Trent potteries. James Brindley built the Trent and Mersey Canal from 1766 to 1777. With a vision to connect all four of England's main rivers together – the Mersey, Trent, Severn and Thames – he created the only other comparative canal port to Shardlow in the town of Stourport-on-Severn. Brindley developed his canal through Shardlow in 1770, to