focus on Lichfield With a summer camp just finished, and preparations under way for November’s The Lichfield Canal “Which is the most completely knackered canal that anyone’s seriously proposing to restore?” This was a question that I clearly remember discussing with a bunch of fellow WRG volunteers quite a few years back. And the answer that we came up with was “Surely it’s got to be the Lichfield Canal.” That’s right, the one we’re about to give a big push to with our November WRG Bonfire Bash dig. Sure, there have been some canals proposed for restoration since then which on the face of it have been even more terminally obliterated than the Lichfield – but I think that at the time, we had a point. With the A5, A38, A51, A5127 and A461 (twice) crossing it with no bridges – oh, and the odd railway line too, plus a few bits that had been filled in and built on – it was going to be a tough job. I think the words ‘hopeless case’ might even have been uttered by those less familiar with the track record of canal restorers when it comes to achieving the impossible… And now here we are, some three decades on, at Canal Camp 2018-15, rebuilding a towpath wall which will form part
of the restored canal’s route around Lichfield. And planning to go back there with London WRG in October, and looking for a good turn out at the Bonfire Bash. And nobody seems to be talking about lost causes now. So has the restoration got easier in the meantime? Well, no, on the face of it things have actually got harder, thanks to a new motorway, a bypass, and the dreaded HS2 railway – but in fact the last two of those look like they might now actually help the restoration, rather than get in its way. Going back to the early days, when the Lichfield & Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust was founded in 1988 it was very much a case of ‘work where you can’, rather than having the luxury of being able to plan the restoration in a logical way. In fact a the Trust probably did more work on its other planned reopening, the Hatherton Canal, which has taken a bit of a back seat recently. An early project was a lock at Fosseway Lane, on a length approximately midway along the route, so about as far away as possible from the ideal ‘work inwards from the ends’ approach. The chamber and bywash were completely restored by LHCRT with support from WRG in the mid 1990s, and then work shifted to a second
Lichfield and Hatherton canals See also map on page 32
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