family camp Uttoxeter Last year WRG held an initial Family Camp for accompanied 8-14 year olds. This year there are three: the volunteers report from the first one... After the success of last year’s initial Family Camp for volunteers aged 8-14 (accompanied by their responsible adults), WRG is holding three more of these weekend events in 2018. The first of these took place on the Uttoxeter Canal in June: two of the young volunteers report back...
Balsam, bird boxes and bollards Uttoxeter Canal family camp 8-10 June On Friday evening, we all gathered at Denstone pre-prep school in Uttoxeter for the first WRG family camp of the year. The accommodation was the top floor of the old stables, fully equipped with new beds and freshly painted (we were the first to use it). Outside, we had a great mass of land in which we could roam, this included: a basketball court, tennis courts, a zip wire, playground structures and a wide-open space. Seeing everyone on the first day was great, we also learnt that basketball is a great way to make friends. So, we slept on the first day
with excitement and anticipation running through us. Saturday morning was an easy wakeup, that was until the fire alarm was set off by our bacon cooking (there was no fire!). Also, all through the night, we were wondering how we would get out of the accommodation tomorrow morning as the Iron Man 70.3 was going past the front of the drive and the road was closed. After a hearty breakfast of cereal and a bacon sandwich, we jumped in the vans and set off for site. When at site we set it up and then put on our PPE. After a quick site safety talk, we set off to do the morning’s tasks: taking shoots off old stumps and digging holes for the bollards. It was the adults who dug while the children – with the support of some adults – lopped off the shoots. Finding the stumps that we were chopping the shoots off was hard due to the amount of Himalayan balsam that was around, so we destroyed that too. At break, the holes for some of the bollards were nearly finished. Break came and went without a fuss, afterwards, we set
fact file Uttoxeter Canal The Canal Camp project: building and installing bird boxes, clearing vegetation, carrying out a nature survey, removing invasive species, and installing bollards, all on a site in the Crumpwood area.
Caldon Canal to Etruria
Length: 13 miles Locks: 17 Date closed: 1849
Froghall: 1st lock and basin restored 2005 Oakamoor
Why? As part of plans for a ‘showpiece’ restored length and visitor site. Crumpwood The wider picture: The canal having closed 180 years ago with parts of its route used for building a railway line, restoration isn’t going to be a Alton quick or easy job. The first section at Froghall, which might seem the Denstone obvious place to start reopening the canal (so that boats from the Caldon Canal Camp site: Canal can access it) is going to be very tricky and expensive to open, thanks to several missing locks, a blockage where a main road crosses, and Crumpwood the need to share space with the Churnet Valley Steam Railway. So the Proposed Caldon & Uttoxeter Canals Trust looked around for a more practical place to diversion start, and hit on the Alton to Crumpwood length - bypassed by the (disused) ending in railway, with surviving locks, the last remaining bridge, and an unusual ‘level converted crossing’ of the River Churnet. This could be a restored ‘showpiece’ length, quarrry with a public tripboat to raise funds and support for more canal restoration. Uttoxeter
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